Veg Manchurian and Manchurian Sauce

The day has started off well with a perfect Sindhi breakfast and a perfect Chinese combo for lunch. We had vegetable fried rice with vegetable manchurian plus mushroom manchurian in sauce. You can find the recipe for the fried rice here.

We had eaten Chinese food the previous week at Shitake at Park Square Mall and were bitterly disappointed. Today, it feels like we ate "Chinese" food.

Ingredients :

1. Mixed vegetables like finely chopped carrots and french beans 
2. 1 cup maida
3. 2 tbsp cornflour
4. Salt to taste
5. 1 tsp red chilli powder
6. 1 tbsp ginger garlic paste
7. 1 tsp black pepper powder
8. Water - enough to make a thick dosa batter
9. Oil for deep frying

How I made it :

1. Mix together all ingredients from 1 to 7. 
2. Add water little by little till it resembles a thick pakoda batter.
3. Heat oil and fry tiny balls of this mixture. 
4. Serve hot. 

I had made the sauce below for the mushroom manchurian, which was reused for this.

Manchurian Sauce :

Ingredients :

1. 1 tsp cornflour mixed in 1/2 cup cold water - do not use hot water
2. 1 tbsp ginger garlic paste
3. 1 tbsp oil
4. 5 spring onions - chopped, green and white separately
5. 2 finely chopped green chillies
6. 2 tbsp soya sauce
7. 1/4 cup Maggi Oriental Sauce - (optional)
8. 1/4 cup tomato ketchup - use 1/2 cup if not using the oriental sauce
9. 1/2 tsp black pepper powder

How I made it :

1. Heat oil in a pan. 
2. Fry the ginger garlic paste.
3. Add the white parts of the spring onion and fry for 3 minutes on low heat
4. Add the green chillies and black pepper
5. After a minute, add the soya sauce taking care to not let it burn. 
6. Add both the oriental as well as tomato ketchup.
7. Once it starts bubbling, put in the water containing dissolved cornflour. 
8. Once the sauce starts to thicken, turn off heat

Here is a picture of the mushroom manchurian in the sauce.

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Maggi Exotica

I make this quite often with whatever veggies I have at hand. This time I had these exotic vegetables that I picked up during my visit to Ooty. I had to use up the veggies soon, before they began to rot as my hubby too had bought veggies from the store nearby. Coincidentally, Nags has put up a similar recipe.You can check out Nag's version of Maggi here.

Ingredients (serves 2):

1. 1 small sized red onion finely sliced
2. 1 small sized broccoli split into florets
3. 1/4 red cabbage chopped into fine strips
4. 1 carrot chopped into fine strips
5. 15 french beans chopped lengthwise
6. 8 cloves garlic chopped into small pieces
7. 1 inch ginger julienned - very fine thin strips
8. 1/2 tsp soya sauce
9. 1/2 tsp vinegar
10. 2 packets maggi with taste maker
11. 1/4 tsp salt + 1/2 tsp
12. Water to cook maggi
13. 2+2tbsp oil + 1 tbsp (optional)

How I made it :

1. Heat up water to immerse noodles. Add 1/2 tsp salt and 2tbsp oil. Boil for 2 minutes. Drain. Rinse noodles in cold water. You can pour an additional tablespoon of oil on top to ensure that they don't stick to each other. I usually put olive oil on the top.
2. In a wok, heat up 2tbsp oil.
3. Put in the ginger and garlic.
4. After 1 minute, put in the onions.
5. When the onion starts turning pink, add the vegetables.
6. When the veggies are more than half cooked, add the vinegar, soya sauce and taste maker.
7. Add 1/4 tsp salt. 
8. Turn off heat when the veggies are cooked to your liking. I like some crunch in the vegetables.
9. Mix in the noodles. Best done with two forks.

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Vegetable Fried Rice with scrambled egg

I love Fried Rice. I remember waiting to get home to eat mom's fried rice. Well, I went to a day cum boarding school so I was served lunch in school. Hence, I had to wait to get home to have the fried rice before dinner.
Well, to my mom for being a very good cook, here goes my version of the fried rice.

Ingredients :
1. 2 cups of cooked rice - best cooked the previous day. If making fresh, make sure you let it cool completely     and then do the rest.
2. 1 1/2 cups of vegetables - finely chopped carrots/beans/cauliflower/corn
3. 1/2 cup finely chopped capsicum
4. 1 medium onion finely chopped
5. 1 tablespoon finely chopped garlic
6. 1 tablespoon finely chopped ginger
7. 2 tbsp soya sauce
8. 1 tbsp oyster sauce
9. 1 tsp vinegar
10. 1 tsp pepper
11. 2 tbsp oil
12. 1 egg scrambled - do the scrambling separately in a different pan
13. salt to taste - be careful if you've salted the rice while cooking and do remember that soya sauce is salty too

How to make :
1. In a wok/kadai/pan, pour in the oil. Before the oil warms up, put in the garlic and ginger. Fry them till them brown.
2. Add the onions and fry till translucent.
3. Add the vegetables. Remember to do all of this on high heat. Hence, do have all ingredients on hand.
4. Once the veggies are almost cooked, add the capsicum. Add salt - be careful about the amount.
5. Fry for 30 seconds. Add the sauces one after the other, taking care not to let any of them burn.
6. Add the rice. Mix everything together.  Add the egg and sprinkle the pepper on the top.

Note :
1. You can skip the oyster sauce. Use 1 more tbsp of soya sauce instead.
2. You could use 5 bulbs of spring onion instead of an onion. Use the green part as a garnish.

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