Vegetable Manchurian Recipe – Dry Veg Manchurian

Vegetable Manchurian Recipe – vegetable dry manchurian recipe- how to make dry veg manchurian – veg manchurain balls – Indo Chinese style dry vegetable manchurian recipe – Indo chinese recipes – Easy Dry Vegetable Manchurian Recipe Here I’m back with another Indo Chinese favorite of mine…”Vegetable Manchurian“, this is a must try side for all type Chinese stir fried rice / noodle dishes. This is one of our all time favorites at home and guess must be the same at your end too, every time when we step into a Indian or Indo-chinese restaurants this will be like mandatory…of course we might choose between veg & non- veg. Chennai Adyar Liu’s Waldorf is my favorite spot to try the best Indo Chinese food,  every summer vacation we used to go there for our treats and special occasions celebrations. They have quite a bit of delectable & delicious appetizers, main coarse and sides which you got to try! I’ve matched a bit in this recipe and gets wonderful reception everytime when i make it. So… give it a try and let me know!

Both dry and gravy versions are just melt in your mouth type dishes and is very simple to make at home if you have the right sauces. Most of the restaurants use ajinomoto or MSG or mild alcohol for highlighting the taste, its totally up to you to choose, I’ve given other options to try under my notes, pls do check. Today i will be sharing dry version of vegetable manchurian which can still be converted to gravy if you wish.

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Vegetable Manchurian Recipe

Vegetable Manchurian- soft deep fried veggie balls appetizer made with soy & chilli sauce in Indo Chinese style. 

Prep Time20 minutes mins

Cook Time20 minutes mins

Total Time40 minutes mins

Course: Appetizer, Snack, starter

Cuisine: Indo Chinese

Keyword: dyr manchurian, manchurian, vegetarian

Servings: 4

Author: Mullai Madavan

Ingredients

Ingredients - for veg balls

• 3 cups mixed veggies (carrots, cabbage, cauliflower, white part spring onion) finely shredded
• 1 tablespoon ginger minced
• 3 cloves garlic minced
• 3 tablespoon maida
• 2 tablespoon cornflour
• 3/4 teaspoon salt
• 1/4 teaspoon black or white pepper powder
• 1 tsp dark soy sauce

Absolutely no water required. Water from the veggies is enough to make the veggie balls. Add finely minced green chilli if you prefer it spicy

Ingredients - for sauce (dry version)

• 1/2 cup spring onion white and green parts, chopped
• 2 tablespoon ginger minced
• 3 cloves garlic minced
• 4 each dry red chilli or green chilli
• 1/4 cup red chilli sauce
• 2 tablespoon dark soy sauce
• 1/2 teaspoon black or white pepper powder
• 1 teaspoon vinegar or vodka or use 1 pinch msg
• 1 teaspoon brown sugar
• 1/2 teaspoon salt
• 3 teaspoon Cooking oil sesame oil preferred
• 1/4 cup water
• 3 cups oil for deep frying
• 1 teaspoon ginger julienned, for garnish
• 1/4 cup spring onion (green part only) for garnish

Ingredients - for extra sauce or gravy

• 1 tablespoon corn flour
• 3/4 cup water

Instructions

To make veg balls

• Combine all ingredients from table- 1 (to make veg balls) in a wide bowl. Mix to combine. 
• Do not add any water, the vegetables will release water when mixed with salt and other ingredients as you mix. Make a slightly wet textured dough. Do not knead too much, it will make the balls very hard when you deep fry. 
• Make golf size balls and keep aside.
• Heat oil and deep fry them over medium flame until lightly golden and crisp. Remove and keep them aside.

To make the dry sauce

• Heat oil and fry the spring onion, dry red chilli, ginger and garlic until lightly browned.
• Add red chilli sauce (tomato ketchup is optional, you may 2 teaspoon if you like tangy flavor)
• Add in dark soy sauce, brown sugar, salt, vodka, water and stir fry over high flame.
• The sauce will thicken as you stir fry over high flame. Add in the veggie balls at this stage along with julienned ginger and stir fry over high flame to coat the veggies balls with the sauce. 
• Switch off and garnish with spring onion.
• Garnish with some more of the julinned ginger and green spring onion just before serving!

To make saucy or brown gravy style

• Mix corn flour /starch in water and add this to the dry mix that was made and stir fry until the yields a gravy style consistency.  For a semi gravy style - As you simmer the sauce a little longer, it gets thicker and thicker and makes it like a sticky sauce.

Try this dish with…..

CABBAGE VEGETABLE FRIED RICE           INDIAN STYLE FRIED RICE           EGG FRIED RICE 

Some more interesting Indo Chinese recipes from our page…

Chicken Lollipop   

APOLLO FISH FRY   

Homemade Chilli Garlic Paste   

Chapati Noodles  

IDLI MANCHURIAN RECIPE

OK, lets move on to the recipe.

To make the Veg manchurian balls – Combine all ingredients from table-1 (for veg balls) in a wide bowl and mix well to combine.

Do not add any water in this step- that will make the dough very sticky and will absorb more oil while frying. The water content in the vegetable should be fine to make the dough. Keep combining until it yields to slightly wet texture mixture (something like masala vada dough)

Make small golf size balls out of the dough and keep aside.

Heat oil in a kadai and start deep frying the manchurian balls till golden. Fry over medium flame for 3 minutes, when you see them getting slightly golden then remove and drain excess oil by placing them on a paper towel.

Frying over high flame will turn the outside skin dark and inner portion won’t cook properly.

Frying for long time also will make the balls really hard, so take care.

Now for the dry sauce – Heat oil in a pan kadai or wok. These are a must for this recipe… to make it really spicy you may add few minced green chilies.

Keep the heat at medium high flame. Fry the spring onions, dry red chili, ginger and garlic till they are browned a bit.

Add the red chili sauce….. adding Tomato ketchup is optional. If you want a more slimy, sticky, sweet, tangy taste… then add about a 2 teaspoon at this stage. I am skipping as we don’t prefer it tangy/sour)

Followed by soy sauce…

Add in brown sugar and salt.

Do not laugh…. 🙂  i add a few drops of vodka (OPTIONAL)  / vinegar / ajinomoto. The alcohol content will fade off when cooking 😛

Pour in the 1/4 cup water and stir fry over high flame for few minutes until the sauces blend well and thicken a bit. More chopped ginger on top if you like….

Add the fried manchurian balls to the sauce and stir fry over high flame for few seconds and switch off. Garnish with chopped spring onions and julienned ginger just before serving.

VEGETABLE MANCHURIAN        CHILLI FISH         IDLI MANCHURIAN   

CHILLI CHICKEN         Egg Fried Rice

Serve as an appetizer or side for any Chinese fried rice or Noodles dish! Enjoy 😛  😛  😛 Now if you want to convert this to a gravy type dish then dissolve corn flour in water from table-3 to make a thick solution and add this to the sauce and simmer for few minutes and then garnish. Adding few roughly chopped veggies or veggie stock will enhance flavor!

EASY FRIED RICE RECIPE (INDIAN STYLE) ~ Spicy Indian Style Fried Rice

Notes

• I know the fact that Ajinomoto or Vodka is not a good thing for health and its purely optional and is only mentioned to get the restaurant quality & taste. If you are making for little kids kindly please avoid using these.
•  Substitute Ajinomoto / Vodka – add white distilled vinegar or 1/2 teaspoon white sugar or increase white pepper powder by 1/4 teaspoon.
• Adding Vodka is optional – it will evaporate by the time you finish cooking. You can substitute with 1/4 teaspoon of rice wine/ dry sherry / plain rice vinegar. All Indo Chinese resturants use some kind of mild alcohol in their dishes.
• Brown sugar gives nice caramel type brown color to the dish and also enhances the flavor quite a bit. Do try to use it!
• You can use regular white sugar if you don’t have brown sugar.
• I’ve used Chings Brand Red Chili sauce – its not too spicy and has tomato base in it. If you are using a different brand which does not have tomato then add 2 Tablespoons of tomato sauce.
• Dark soy gives color, body & saucy texture to the dish- you can also use light soy but may have to use more.
• All sauces has salt in it so add as mentioned increase only if necessary.
• You may choose to dry red chili or green chili or both.
• Tomato ketchup – this is optional. Add only if you want a more slimy, sweet tangy feel to gravy. It also makes is more sweet, hence skipping for this recipe.
• Do not add any water while making the manchurian balls- keep mixing until it forms a thick wet dough. Too runny dough will make the balls break while frying and drink lot of oil. Too thick dough will yield hard manchurian balls. Adjust consistency with extra flour or veggies depending on mess;-)