Vegetable Manchurian, an Indo-Chinese Recipe

One of our favourite dishes to order when we eat out at an Indian restaurant is the 'vege-manchurian'. It consists of small, deep fried dumplings made of vegetables and flour, served with an amazingly thick, dark gravy full of Oriental flavours like soy sauce and ginger. The dumplings can contain most varieties of vegetables but I've chosen to keep my version simple with just carrots and cabbage.There are lots of Chinese inspired Indian recipes on the menus of Indian restaurants these days from honeyed potatoes and different varieties of noodles but we like this one the most! I often wondered how it was made and happily, upon researching it, found it was not difficult at all. Now we can enjoy one of our favourite restaurant dishes home made Devnaa style, and so can you :)

Vegetable Manchurian Recipe (serves 8)

Ingredients:

1 vegetable stock cube
500 ml hot water

Dumplings:

600 g cabbage
300 g carrots
5 tbsp plain flour
5 tbsp corn flour
2 tsp grated ginger
2 tsp grated garlic
1 small green chilli (finely chopped)
1 tbsp light soy sauce
1 tsp red chilli flakes
Ground black pepper to taste
Salt to taste
Oil for deep frying

• Dissolve the stock cube in the hot water and leave aside to cool.
• Finely chop the cabbage and grate the carrot to achieve coarse (small but not too mushy) shreds.
• Combine the vegetables and stir in the flours, ginger, garlic, chilli, soy sauce, chilli flakes, pepper and salt.
• Mix well to combine, you should be able to take a tablespoon of the mixture and squash it into a rough ball that holds together. If this does not work, add some of the vegetable stock mixture until you achieve the right consistency.  (You should still have about 400 ml stock left over for the gravy).
• Heat up oil in a deep frying pan or wok placed over a medium-high heat. The oil is ready if you place some of the cabbage mixture in and it rises to the surface immediately.
• Take tablespoons of the cabbage mixture, roll into rough balls and deep fry until golden brown all over.
• Drain on kitchen paper and keep warm.

Gravy:

3 tbsp corn flour
2 tbsp oil
250 g spring onions (use the green bits too!)
1 tbsp grated ginger
1 tbsp grated garlic
2 small green chillies (finely chopped)
3 tbsp light soy sauce
5 tbsp tomato ketchup
1 tbsp balsamic vinegar
2 tbsp dark muscovado sugar
Salt to taste
5 tbsp finely chopped coriander

• Mix the corn flour into about 100 ml of the cold vegetable stock and leave aside.
• Heat up the oil in a large pan and then add the spring onions, ginger, garlic and chilli.
• Allow to cook until lightly browned and the flavours have released well.
• Carefully pour about 300 ml of the vegetable stock into the pan and stir well.
• Allow the stock to come to a boil over a high heat and then reduce the heat slightly before adding the soy sauce, ketchup, vinegar, sugar and salt.
• Mix well and allow the sauce to come to the boil over a medium heat.
• Stir in the corn flour mixture and cook until you have thick gravy.
• Arrange the dumplings in a serving dish and pour the gravy on top.
• Sprinkle with coriander and serve immediately.

Chef's note: You can use most vegetables when making the dumplings but as they are deep fried, be careful not to add sweetcorn in case the corn bursts in the oil whilst frying. xx