Vegetable Manchurian

During the crazy Arctic freeze and blizzard of last week when everyone was huddled indoors, I took a break to make these manchurians. Usually, a gloomy weather is an excuse for making fried foods such as bajji and pakoda. They warm you up and make you forget the calories for a while. Since my husband had been asking for manchurians lately (and since I love them too), I decided to try and make some.

This is just my mish-mash version of machurians. Manchurians are popular in India and are hailed as Indo-Chinese delicacies. However, most Chinese people don't regard Manchurians as Chinese food. It has some soy sauce and Chinese chilli sauce in it, so perhaps that's why it's referred as Indo-Chinese. 

So what are manchurians, you might ask. They are crispy fried nuggets of vegetables (popularly cauliflower florets) that's tossed in a spicy and flavorful Asian sauce consisting of soy sauce, ginger, garlic, brown sugar, tomato sauce, chilli sauce and scallions. They make extremely addictive appetizers and finger foods. 

I added no heat to this version. No chillies, no chilli sauce, because we are not fans of heat. Plus, I didn't have any chillies or chilli sauce... and venturing out to get them in a polar blizzard didn't seem wise. So add as many chillies as you would like, if you decide to try this recipe. The manchurians were flavorful for sure and tasted quite close to the real deal.

Ingredients (serves 2):

For the manchurians (makes 14)

1. 1 cup shredded cabbage
2. 1 green bell-pepper, finely chopped (comes to 1 cup)
3. 2 tablespoons besan / kadalai maavu / bengal gram dhal flour
4. 3 tablespoon rice flour
5. 1 teaspoon soy sauce
6. 1 teaspoon salt or as needed
7. 1 teaspoon pepper
8. 1 tablespoon of equal proportion of minced garlic and ginger
9. 1 tablespoon chopped scallions 
10. 4-5 cups vegetable oil for deep frying

the manchurians seem really dark because I used purple cabbage

For the Sauce

1. 2 tablespoons sesame oil
2. 3 pods of garlic, minced
3. 1 teaspoon minced ginger
4. 1/4 of a medium red onion, minced
5.  3 tablespoons tomato ketchup
6. 1 tablespoon soy sauce
7. 2 teaspoons vinegar / rice wine vinegar
8. 1.5 teaspoons honey
9. salt as needed (be wary of the soy sauce)
10. Some coriander leaves/cilantro for garnish

Dipped in sauce

  Preparation:

1.  In a bowl, mix the cabbage, bell pepper, ginger, garlic, scallions, salt and pepper. Add soy sauce and mix. Add besan, rice flour and all-purpose flour and mix. The addition of flour should enable you to make small fritter sized balls that hold shape and form. If you are unable to form balls, sprinkle some more besan or rice flour and try again. Adding rice flour makes the manchurians crispy. (note: I did not drain water from the vegetables, especially the cabbage)
2. Form balls and deep fry them to golden brown. Fry them on medium heat making sure the outside doesn't fry before the insides are cooked. That is, slowly fry them to a golden brown. Drain on paper towels. 
3. Make the sauce.
1. Heat sesame oil and add onion and saute until they are translucent. 
2. Add garlic and ginger and fry on medium heat for a minute or two. Remove from heat.
3. In a bowl, whisk together - tomato ketchup, soy sauce, honey, vinger and salt (if needed). 
4. Add the sauted onion, garlic, ginger (along with any sesame oil in the pan) to the sauce and mix well. 
4. Now, take each manchurian and dip/roll it in the sauce and take out. After repeating this for each manchurian, pour the remaining sauce evenly on the manchurians and serve with a garnish of coriander leaves and scallions (if you have any). 

Serve immediately. You can carefully skewer each manchurian on a tooth pick and lay them out as finger food. Enjoy before the manchurians become soft!