Spice battered cauliflower fried/baked and tossed in a spicy sweet sauce with bell pepper, garlic and ginger- a Classic and perfect Indo-Chinese dish.
Baked cauliflower recipe: https://www.relishthebite.com/spicy-baked-cauliflower-bites/
I have mentioned many times in my other post that paneer is one of my favourites. Even cauliflower and mushroom are my favourites. This time I am going to use it to prepare Indo-Chinese or Indian-Chinese cuisine. And it is “Cauliflower Manchurian” 🙂 .I always make Paneer Manchurian and baby corn Manchurian. But this time I wanted to make something different to accompany my veg fried rice. You can prepare any Manchurian gravy by replacing the cauliflower with tofu, paneer, baby corn,chicken or broccoli and so on. Dry Cauliflower Manchurian is served as a starter in many fine restaurants. Whenever I think of indo chinese food in my home, it is fried rice, noodles and Manchurian that hits the roof!
You can even bake these cauliflower like the one I have baked – Spicy baked cauliflower.
It is too tasty to have manchurian but easy to make mistakes
. These are few common ones:
- When you add the corn flour paste, add it slowly as it easily tends to make lumps.
- If the batter coating is too thick, the Manchurian might become gloopy and too thick. It also gets soggy on cooling which we don’t want. Right?
- Balance the soy sauce and salt. As most of the soy sauce has high sodium content, so when you also add salt and soy sauce together, it becomes salty! Yikess… You don’t want that as well. So, taste them as you add. That’s the best solution I would say.
- If you think the gravy is too thick for you, then thin it adding little water. Just little! Or else it may become very liquidy!
- If you think you need more gravy, add the corn flour paste and water proportionally to it.
I guess it’s enough of talks today ;), let’s go to the recipe. 
- For gravy:
- Green Chilli – 1, finely chopped
- Ginger – 1 inch, finely chopped
- Garlic – 6, finely chopped
- Red chilli –1, broken finely
- capsicum/bell pepper - 1 cup, chopped as cubes
- Spring onion/scallion whites – ½ cup, chopped
- Soy sauce – 1 tbsp
- Tomato sauce – 2 tbsp
- White vinegar – 1 tsp
- Black pepper – 1 tsp
- Sugar – ½ tsp
- Veg stock or Water – 1 ½ Cups
- Salt – as required
- Oil – for frying the paneer (about 6 tbsp of oil)
- Scallion greens/ spring onions – for garnish
For Cauliflower marinade: - Cauliflower florets – 250 gms
- Corn flour – 2 tbsp
- Chilli powder - 1 tsp
- Pepper powder - 1 tsp
- Ginger garlic paste – 1 tsp
- Salt and pepper as required
for the corn flour paste: - Corn flour – 2 tbsp
- Water – ½ cup
- Mix the corn flour mixture under “for the corn flour paste” and keep aside.
- Mix all the ingredients under “for cauliflower Marinade”. Mix it well so that the cauliflower is coated with the marinade.
- Now shallow fry the cauliflower cubes in hot oil. Drain and keep aside.
- Now take a pan, add the chilli flakes, chilli and scallion whites and stir fry the bell pepper on medium heat. Make sure they do not burn.
- Add the soy sauce and tomato sauce, veg stock or water. Stir and simmer. After a minute or so, add the corn flour paste and let the sauce thicken.
- When it thickens, add the fried paneer cubes, vinegar, sugar, pepper and salt. Simmer for a minute.
- Garnish with spring onion green.
2. When you add the cornflour paste, add it slowly as it easily tends to make lumps.
3. If you think the gravy is too thick for you, then thin it by adding little water. If you think you need more gravy, add the cornflour paste and water proportionally to it.
Serve this Cauliflower Manchurian hot with noodles or veg fried rice.
No deep frying needed. You need to get the noodles crispy, which you can do by cooking them in pan.
