Baby Corn Manchurian

Indian-Chinese food (or Indo-Chinese) is one of my favorite types of food.  It's basically fast-food Chinese with Indian spices or influences, and has become increasingly popular with Indian communities in the U.S. the past several years.  I experienced Indian Chinese food for the first time since my childhood about 6 years ago when I went to Tangra Masala in New York, which has since become one of my favorite restaurants in the country.  I haven't really attempted Indian Chinese food at home though because the flavor mix in the dishes is so powerful that I always have trouble figuring out what spices to use.   

I decided to take the plunge though recently because I had some leftover baby corn in my fridge, and Baby Corn Manchurian is one of my favorite Indian Chinese dishes.  I did some googling, and settled on a few sites to help guide my first attempt:  Cooking and Me (thanks to Nags to the permission to comment on the awesome blog) and Sulekha.com.  

 

I mostly followed the recipe on Cooking and Me, though I did make a few alterations.  My ingredient substitutions included:

• Using all-purpose flour in place of maida
• Grinding yellow corn meal to make the corn flour 
• Adding 1/4 cup water to the flour mixture to allow it to more easily coat each piece of baby corn
• Adding one finely chopped serrano pepper and more soy sauce
• A few "turns" of fresh ground pepper in place of "pepper powder"

I also cooked the dish slightly differently because I was multi-tasking in the kitchen that day, and so I cooked the vegetable mixture on the stovetop for about 10 minutes longer than called for in the recipe on lower-heat.  I also cut the baby corn into 1-inch segments instead of halving them, and fried them in my deep fryer for about 4 minutes, or until golden brown.  

As you can see from the picture, I ended up making the "dry" version of the dish, and not the version that included the extra sauce -- I generally prefer my Baby Corn Manchurian dry, and was also worried that the gravy would dilute the flavor of the dish.  

Overall, I enjoyed the dish but I felt that something was still missing -- and I think that ingredient was a little bit of tomato paste to give the dish a bit more tartness and therefore resemble most Baby Corn Manchurian dishes that I've had.  I also think that instead of prepared ginger garlic paste, I may use fresh ginger and garlic instead to really pump up the flavors of the dish.  An alternative way to prepare would also be to just deep fry the baby corn as directed with the flavorful coating because the crisp baby corn without the vegetable tasted quite good on its own with a little salt and pepper.  

Any ideas on how to improve this first attempt at Baby Corn Manchurian are more than welcome!  Thanks again to Cooking and Me, and Sulekha, for their recipe guidance!

Comments

[moby wrap]

My kids love to eat Chinese Manchurian as it really tastes wonderful.