Love for Manchuria - Vegetable, Gobi and Baby Corn

Vegetable Manchuria

The second dish that I made was vegetable manchuria. I love veg. manchuria and when I saw a recipe for this in sunday edition of Eenadu newspaper, I gave it a try. Luckily for my family it turned out well both taste wise and looks wise. At first, I strictly followed the recipe to dot, but now I make slight adjustments of my own based on availability of ingredients. Here goes the recipe for the veg. manchuria:

Ingredients:

Chopped carrots - 1 cup

Chopped green beans - 1 cup

Chopped cabbage - 1 cup

Chopped capsicum - 1/2 cup

Corn flour - 1 cup

Maida (All purpose flour) - 1/2 cup

Green chilly sauce - 1 tbsp

Ginger garlic paste - 1 tbsp

Egg - optional

Salt 

Black pepper powder

Soya sauce

Oil for frying

Garnish: All these should be finely chopped

Coriander leaves

Ginger

Garlic

Green Chilies

Ketchup

Soya sauce

Process:

1. Mix all the chopped vegetables, boil them till cooked. I stop boiling them when the cabbage becomes translucent. Drain and keep the water. Note: Throwing away this water is waste of nutrients, it can be used in other dishes requiring water.
2. After the vegetables have cooled down, add ginger garlic paste, 2-3 drops of soya sauce (remember that soya sauce is salty), green chilly sauce, salt and pepper powder. Mix well using a spatula. Add the beaten egg and mix.
3. Add the 2 flours and mix well. If the mix is too thick add little water, be careful not to make mix watery or loose. 
4. Heat the oil in a deep frying pan. Make small balls of the mix and drop them in oil. Be careful while doing so.
5. Fry on medium heat. Take them out when slightly golden brown and keep aside. Check one piece to see if they have cooked to the core.
6. For garnish: mix ketchup, soya sauce with some water. Fry the chillies, ginger, garlic and add little ketchup mix. Once this is well cooked added the fried veg. manchura and add the remaining ketchup mix. Mix till all pieces are coated with the sauce.
7. Finally add the chopped coriander.

Other variation for garnish can be - substituting chopped capsicum for green chillies, using chopped onions or chopped green onions.

Note: Incase you are not able to find the corn flour, just use maida instead of corn flour and the dish will still be same. Corn flour adds a slight crunchiness to the manchuria.

Gobi Manchuria

I also make gobi manchuria very frequently. More frequently than veg. Manchuria I guess. The reason being that when ever I see a cauliflower, I cannot get my self to make anything other than gobi manchuria. So in case we want to make a gobi based curry, I leave it to my husband :). Following are the steps that I follow to make gobi manchuria:

Ingredients:

Cauliflower - cut into florets

Corn flour - 1 cup

Maida (All purpose flour) - 1/2 cup

Green chilli sauce - 1 tbsp

Ginger garlic paste - 1 tbsp

Salt

Black pepper powder

Soya sauce

Oil for frying

Process:

1. Slightly boil the cauliflower florets
2. Mix the corn flour, maida, ginger garlic paste, chilli sauce, salt, pepper and soya sauce (2-3 drops). Add water so to make slight thick paste. The consistency should be not be too thin or too thick.
3. Heat the oil. Dip each floret in the flour mix and drop carefully into the hot oil. Cook on medium heat. Take out when golden brown.
4. Garnish step is same as for the veg. manchuria.

Note:Since corn flour adds to the crunchiness. So if you skip out on boiling of cauliflower florets , they might end more crunchier than expected. This is from Hari's personal experience

Baby Corn Manchuria

The most recent addition to my manchuria dishes family is baby corn manchuria. For some reason I remembered the baby corn appetizer I ate at Ohris, Hyderabad and then the craving for baby corn manchuria started. I tried to find the fresh baby corn in stores but finally gave up and bought the canned baby corns. They were pretty good. The process is similar to gobi manchuria, we just have to substitute the cauliflower florets with baby corn.