Gobi Manchurian dry recipe | Crispy & juicy - Raks Kitchen (2024)

Gobi Manchurian is one of the most common and popular Indo-Chinese dish. Learn how to make a crispy, yet juicy gobi manchurian dry at home.

Indo Chinese recipes are super tasty, fast to make and loved by all. Be it restaurants or street food, it is the most popular food item loved by all age group.

Check out these Indo Chinese lunch menu ideas in my website.

Ingredients

Cauliflower - In Hindi, Gobi (Phool gobhi) means cauliflower. In India (Indian variety cauliflower) the cauliflower is harder in texture.

It takes longer comparatively to the ones we get here in Singapore (Chinese and Australian imported).

So according to the variety, the cooking time varies. I like to boil Indian variety couple of minutes. While the other varieties just add to hot water and take out immediately.

Cleaning

Treating cauliflower before cooking is best idea. The can be small green worms hiding in between the florets. So take good time to see through and cut them into smaller florets.

Wash once in plain water. Then you can boil water with sea salt/ rock salt. Add turmeric (optional) and cauliflower to it.

You can switch off stove and soak for 15 to 20 mins or choose to par boil.

After that drain from water and use in the recipe.

Best in Singapore

Gobi 65 and gobi manchurian dry, both are my family favorites. So where ever we go to restaurants, we search for any on of the above in the menu card.

Indian Wok is one of our favorite eat out and the reason, being they serve best one that is really dry. It will be crisp outside, still juicy inside and we all are now big fans of dry version of gobi manchurian.

Aj is just crazy about it. I tried my best to try it out at home, the only thing I could not get is to maintain the crispiness. But still my family enjoys my version of the dish.

My notes

After so many attempts and noting down tips from shows, I understand the batter consistency is a key for the crispiness.

For dry version, it is fine, just try to add cooking soda to make the outer layer batter light and crisp.

You do not want the layer to be thick when you are making gravy or semi dry version.

Key is not to make the batter too thick like bajji batter. Slightly runny than that, just enough to coat the gobi.

One more tip is to use chilled water or plain soda for super crispy, airy results.

Ingredients

There are various versions available across, each one have their own version. So there is no right or wrong keeping few ingredients a must.

Cauliflower - Make sure to clean the cauliflower well with care. Most of the Indian variety have small worms in it. What we get here in Singapore (from China or Australia) doesn't have any worm at all.

But I feel it is loaded with pesticides, that's why. Also the texture is so much different, Indian ones have firm texture, takes time to get cooked.

Other cauliflowers we get here gets cooked in couple of minutes and is too soft. It gets mashed in biryani or kurma if I add along all vegetables.

So find out which variety you get and adjust parboiling time accordingly. Either way, make sure to clean well and blanch or parboil with salt and turmeric.

Variations

Want to make more spicy? Add some finely chopped green chilli along garlic. I added a bird's eye chilli in my video and it was perfectly balanced.

You can add black pepper according to your preference. Take note adding too much may also spoil the taste.

Make this recipe gluten free by replacing all purpose flour (maida) with rice flour or arrowroot flour.

Use both ginger and garlic equally instead of garlic alone.

Top tip

How to make gobi manchurian crispy?

For crispy results, you also can try refrigerate the batter and cauliflower. Once cold, take out from fridge and deep fry in hot oil.

It takes bit longer to get fried but this makes the cauliflower get crispy as well. This stays crispy longer too.

One more idea is to use chilled plain soda (un sweetened) in place of water to prepare the batter. In that case avoid cooking soda in the below recipe.

That is when you drop in oil, let the flame be high. After that let it cook in medium when you want to make it crispy.

Do not try to separate the cauliflower that are sticking just after you add to oil. Let it get cooked, flip and then use the ladle to separate the florets.

If there are more, you can separate after draining form oil.

Do check out my baked Gobi 65 recipe too.

Recipe card

Stepwise photos

1. Clean the cauliflower and cut into small florets.

2. Parboil or blanch by keeping it immersed in boiling hot water with salt for 15-20 minutes.

3. Make a batter with corn flour, all purpose flour and cooking soda if adding, thick enough to coat the cauliflowers.

4. You can either dip the well drained florets one by one in the batter or just mix all of it with the drained florets and deep fry.

5. Just make sure there is enough batter to coat the florets. Deep fry until crisp and light. Keep aside.

6. In a wide pan, add 3 tablespoon oil and add chopped garlic, chilli if adding.

7. Give a quick stir and then add finely chopped white part of the spring onion and the chopped onion and fry till transparent. I added colored capsicum too, just 2 tablespoon each.

8. Add both sauces, salt a little bit, sugar if adding, pepper and mix well.

9. Add the deep fried cauliflower florets and toss well to mix it evenly.

10. Lastly add finely chopped green part of the spring onion and mix well for a minute.

Gobi Manchurian gravy

1. Mix corn flour, vinegar in water.

2. Add to the cauliflower, mix in high flame.

3. Once you see a glaze and becomes shiny, switch off flame.

Serve hot immediately as starter or with any Chinese style rice / noodles….!