Gobi Manchurian: from Chinatown

Did you know Manchurian sauce does not belong to Chinese cuisine? It is, infact a creation of a group of Chinese immigrants who settled in the back-alleys of Kolkatta and aptly called the district Chinatown. To cater to their vegetarian clientele, they used the local vegetables, spiced up with the condiments they brought along with them to create the Manchurian sauce which has been a phenomenal success!

And that is why this dish is Indo-Chinese, spiced up suitably for the Indian palette and very different from the real, authentic Chinese cuisine. Gobi manchurian is deep fried cauliflower florets in manchurian sauce. It is the best way to use up a huge cauliflower you are stuck with. Or broccoli for that matter. Both work well. Depending on whether you want to serve it as an appetizer or gravy, adjust the quantity of stock used. I have not used MSG/ajinomoto in the recipe given below. You may change the measurements of the spices to suit your taste.

You'll need:

2 cups cauliflower florets

2 tbsp flour

2-3 tbsp cornflour

Salt and pepper to taste

Oil for frying

Mix the flour and cornflour with little water to form a thin batter. Add salt and pepper to it. Dip the cauliflower florets in it and deep fry till golden. Remove to paper towels and cool.

For the sauce:

1 tbsp garlic chopped

1/2 tbsp ginger chopped

3-4 green chillies slit

1 1/2 - 2 cups vegetable stock/water

1 tsp vinegar

2 tbsp soy sauce

1-2 tsp cornflour mixed in water

Salt and pepper to taste

1 tsp chopped coriander leaves

Spring onions/scallions for garnish

In a wok, heat oil/butter and stir-fry garlic, green chillies and ginger for a minute. Add the stock/water, salt, pepper, soy sauce, vinegar and mix well. Bring the sauce to a boil and add the cornflour paste. Cook for a minute or two till it thickens. Add the fried cauliflower florets just before serving and garnish with spring onions and coriander leaves.

Note: To serve gobi manchurian as gravy, increase the quantity of stock.

Other Indo-Chinese dishes on this blog:

Hakka Noodles

Schezwan Rice

Schezwan Sauce

Chilli Chicken

This goes to AWED - Chinese hosted at Culinary Bazaar.

Chinese Hakka Noodles

This lady has turned everyone into an express train! Ever since she announced her express cooking event, I've been running about my tasks everyday!!! And she is not satisfied. I sent her this and this and she asks, "But where is the meal?" Can't refuse her, can I?

Express cooking idea # 1 Chinese Hakka Noodles

Bring a large pot of water to boil and add the noodles to it. Cook till soft, drain. In a large wok, stir fry a tbsp of white part of spring/green onions till soft. Throw in a tsp of chopped ginger and a tbsp of finely chopped garlic and fry. Now throw in some carrots, peas, French beans/ bean sprouts, cabbage, bell peppers chopped/sliced and sauté till tender. If you parboil the veggies first and then sauté them, cooking time is reduced. Add the noodles, some soy sauce, red chilli sauce, vinegar, white pepper and toss. Add salt only if required as the soy sauce already has a lot of salt. Serve warm.

Schezwan Rice

It's fairly quick to fix an Indo-Chinese dinner, especially if your guests like this cuisine. You can have a variety of dishes which hardly take much cooking time. I think I spend more time chopping up the vegetables than actually cooking the dish. This recipe for schezwan rice is long overdue. So let's get straight to it!

You will need:
3 cups cooked rice
¾ cup of diced carrots, beans and peas
¾ cup of leeks/spring onions
Ajinomoto – optional
Schezwan sauce – see recipe here
Salt, pepper
Colour – optional
Note: I do not use colour or msg in my recipes

Blanch the carrots, beans and peas. Heat oil and butter in a pan. Stir fry the vegetables for 2 minutes. Add the rice, schezwan sauce, salt, pepper, colour, ajinomoto and leeks/ spring onions and stir fry. Garnish with leeks/spring onions. Serve with Chilli chicken or Manchurian.

Schezwan sauce

For the first time in my life I celebrated Valentine's Day!!! In all the years I've known V and the two years we've been married, I don't remember celebrating this day. V'days usually passed by like any other regular day. Contrary to my previous post, I'm a big cynic when it comes to Valentine's Day! Too commercial, and well, any day can be special, isn't it? But what if something can be done to bring a change into our otherwise drab lives……? Ah, now that thought clicked! And all you blog buddies inspired me to churn out a nice warm dinner for V day! After mulling over various ideas, I finalized the menu.

What was on the menu on Valentine's Day? Indianised Chinese !!! So for all those Indo-Chinese cuisine lovers, here's what I cooked ….. Hot and sour soup, Spring rolls with Schezwan sauce, Shrimp Schezwan Rice, Chilli Chicken gravy and for dessert there was Honey noodles with vanilla icecream and Chocolate-strawberry cakes with Strawberry icecream. And guess what, both of us being complete foodies, enjoyed every bit of the dinner!!!

Will keep posting all these recipes one by one. I have not used ajinomoto or colour in my recipes. Here's the first for schezwan sauce :

Finely chop 2 tbsp each of ginger, garlic, onions and celery stalk. Heat oil in a pan and fry the onions for a minute. Then add ginger, garlic, celery stalk and 2-3 tbsp red chilli paste and stir fry for another minute. Add salt, pepper, ajinomoto(optional), 1 ½ cups of tomato ketchup and colour(optional) and cook for 2 minutes.

Chilli Chicken

Hubby and I love Chinese - let me correct, Indianised Chinese cuisine and visit our favourite restaurant Bamboo Chinese whenever we want to dig into some hot and spicy food. It was a rather dull and gloomy day and what was better to brighten our day than some hot and spicy chilli chicken! It was my first try at this, and it turned out to be really simple!

To make Chilli Chicken, you need:

Chicken breast - 200 gms
Green Chillies - 6
Garlic heaped – 1 tbsp
Onion – 1
Capsicum – 1
Chicken stock – ½ cup
Salt/Pepper to taste
Ajinomoto/MSG – ¼ tsp (optional)
Soya Sauce
Chilly Sauce
Cornflour
Egg white
Spring Onion greens – 2 tbsp

Chop the chicken into cubes and marinate with ½ tbsp each of soya sauce, chilly sauce and garlic paste; add egg white, salt, pepper and ajinomoto. Chop the onion into dices and capsicum into juliennes, marinate with ½ tbsp each of soya sauce, chilly sauce and garlic paste and keep aside for 20 minutes. Sprinkle cornflour on the chicken and deep fry. Heat oil in a pan and stir fry onion till brown. Add garlic, ginger, chillies, capsicum and stirfry for a minute. Add chicken, seasonings, stock and cornflour for thickening and cook till the chicken is dry. Garnish with spring onion greens and serve hot.

This version of chilli chicken makes an excellent starter. By adding more stock, you can make chilli chicken gravy and serve with steamed rice.