Chicken Manchurian

When we were dating, Vik mentioned about this 'Chinese' chicken dish that he used to have, growing up in India. After all the explanation of what and how, I remember thinking that he made it up. Just as much as him thinking, how could it be possible that she doesn't know of such known Chinese dish?!'

We shamely fell into this whirlwind of 'assuming and stereotyping' - I had this deep frown on me when he looked strangely at 'martabak.' He never came across 'martabak' until he met me.

See, of course, I assume he knew; urgh...martabak is Indian dish, isnt it? So, hm..? But nope, he has no clue what martabak is. There I went for deep research on martabak. ;) Long story.

Chicken Manchurian, is a Indian-Chinese dish. Kind of Chinese dish with Indian twist. After googling and such, I came to 'two' versions of it - one is with deep fried chicken chunks (seem to be the most known one) and the other is in the shape of chicken meatballs. Vik insisted that it has to be the meatballs kind.

That all was oh..five years ago.

What:
- 500 gram ground chicken
- 1 carrots, finely chopped
- handful of bamboo shoots, finely chopped (or cabbage, if you prefer or have it in fridge instead bamboo shoots)
- pinch of ground coriander
- 1 teaspoon corn flour, mix to 1 tablespoon water.
- 2 cloves garlic, finely chopped
- small piece of ginger, grated
- 2 green chillies
- 2 green onions
- soy sauce (according to taste)
- chicken broth
- sambal / hot sauce (not tobasco)

How:
- Make the chicken meatballs by combining ground chicken, carrots, bamboo shoots, ground coriander, dash of soy sauce and some of the chopped garlic and ginger. Shape into balls.
- Instead of deep fry, I pan fry it by heating up couple tablespoon of oil on nonstick pan. Add the meatballs, turn after couple minutes. Put on the side (on paper towel) while making the sauce/ gravy.
- Put 2 teaspoon oil in a wok, fry ginger, garlic, green chilies until fragrance.
- Add the chicken broth, soy sauce, sambal to the garlic mixture. Stir and let the broth heat up until it bubbles a little.
- Add meatballs and stir.
- Pour a little bit of corn flour mixture to the pot. Stir. It will thicken up the gravy. If it is not thick enough, gently pour a little bit more of the corn flour mixture.
- Add green onions just right before removing the wok from heat.