VEG MANCHURIAN DRY – STARTER RECIPE

Veg machurian is one of the many INDIAN chinese dishes you wont find in china (surprise suprise) ! It is an invention of chinese immigrants in India for the spice loving indians.

You can watch the full video recipe here –

What exactly is Veg manchurian then ?

Veg manchurian is basically finely minced vegetables, fried and coated with a thick luscious chilly – garlic – soya based sauce. The soft juicy veg manchurian balls are seemingly easy to make, but actually quite tricky. I have tried so many times and ended up with chewy or hard or rubbery manchurian balls. Many a times the sauce is not absorbed by the balls and they end up tasting like cardboard. After a lot of trial and errors,  I had defeatedly concluded that I cant make good manchurian balls or no true recipe exists on the internet 🙁

But I finally learnt how to make the perfect soft and plump veg manchurian balls from the chinese chef at my restaurant, Mr. Bamdev. A soft spoken kumaoni chef,  he had years of experience in various chinese restaurant kitchens.

It would not be false to add here that it is the technique just as much as the ingredients that its the hallmark of a good recipe. He used the same ingredients that i had tried in so many of my failed attempts but with just a little bit of a tweak in the method of preparation , his manchurian balls were melt in the mouth. One can easily cut through the soft balls with a spoon without applying any pressure at all.

This dish is made in dry form or wet. When the balls are served with a thick gravy, they are usually enjoyed with a variety of rice or noodles. And the dry version is served as an appetizer.

The method of making them both remains mostly the same with the exception of adding more water in the wet version or ” veg manchurian gravy” as it is called in a lot of restaurants.

It is important to chop the vegetables in the perfect size for the balls to have the correct consistency. Usually meat cleavers are used in restaurants to mince the veggies finely. But since most of us dont have cleavers lying around the house, since most of us are not serial killers, you can chop them in a food processsor or in a manual chopper like the one shown below.

 

You can buy the manual chopper easily online here.

As a last resort,  u can pulse the veggies in your mixer jar.  But DO NOT grate them. Since,  grating releases a lot of  moisture from the vegetables and to compensate for that we will either have to throw all the healthy water out or add a lot of flours. Both of which we dont want.

Please watch the video recipe to understand the making in details with lots of tips.

If you like this recipe you can also try my nachos or ravioli recipe.

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