The Veg Manchurian or Vegetable Manchurian is a very popular dish created by Indian chefs though the name is borrowed from Manchuria, a province in Northeast China. It is an entirely Indian take by the Chinese restaurants in India and hardly bears any resemblance to the original Manchu cuisine.
The story goes that it was invented by a chef named Nelson Wang, who was requested by one of his regular customers to create a dish which was out of the menu. Thus, Wang used Indian vegetables, mixed cornflour and Chinese ingredients such as soy sauce to create a variant. He began by using the traditional ingredients such as ginger, garlic and green chillies and then followed it up with cornstarch, vinegar and soy to lend the dish its very distinct flavour. The non-vegetarian version of the dish uses minced chicken as a main ingredient with the preparation remaining the same. It also uses MSG (monosodium glutamate) to enhance the flavours though many avoid consuming it due to health concerns.
Preparation time: 10 minutes
Cooking time: 15-20 minutes
Servings: 4
Ingredients:
for Vegetable Balls
- 1 cup – Grated Cabbage
- ½ cup – Grated Carrot
- ½ cup – Spring Onion (Finely Chopped)
- 2 – Green Chillies (chopped)
- 1tbsp – Cloves Garlic (Minced)
- 1tbsp – Cornflour
- 3 tbsp – Plain Flour
- Salt to Taste
- ½ cup Water
For Gravy
- 1 tbsp – Chopped Garlic
- 2 tsp – Chopped Ginger
- 1 tsp – Green Chilli Sauce
- 1 tbsp – Soy Sauce
- 1 tsp – Tomato Ketchup
- 1½ cup – Water
- 1 tsp – Sugar
- Salt to Taste
- 1tbsp – Cornflour mixed in ½ cup water (make slurry)
Method:
- In a bowl take grated cabbage, carrot, spring onion, garlic, cornflour, salt to taste and mix well
- Add a little water, just enough to bind the vegetables and flour
- Make 8-10 lemon-sized vegetable balls
- Heat a wok, pour in oil for deep frying the balls
- Once the oil has heated up, turn down the flame and test whether oil is ready for frying. Put in a small piece of the prepared vegetarian Manchurian and if it floats to the top immediately its ready. If the stays at the bottom, then the oil needs to heat more
- Thereafter start putting in all the balls one by one and deep fry on medium flame till golden brown
- Once the balls are all done, remove on a tissue paper to drain excess oil
- Method Gravy
- In the same wok, reduce the oil to approx.. 1tbsp and put in the garlic cloves, ginger and saute till raw smell of garlic is removed
- Add ketchup, sugar, green chilli sauce, soy sauce and one and half cup of water and bring to a boil.
- Pour in the cornflour slurry and mix well. Once the gravy starts to thicken put in the vegetable manchurian balls and mix well. Let the mixture simmer for a couple of minutes
- Garnish with some spring onion greens and its ready to serve
Serve with fried rice or noodles
While Veg Manchurian may not be considered healthy by some traditional standards because it is deep fried and uses cornstarch/cornflour – it cannot be denied that the dish uses vegetables in abundance which give it not only the right texture but also nutrition.
