The Sausage Dog

Everyone at our Deepavali Dinner could not stop raving about the Manchurian Cauliflower.

This is a popular Indo-Chinese appetizer recipe, it is crunchy but soft, and the cauliflower is the perfect carrier for all that batter and spicy flavours.

It is not an Indian dish, but I chose to make it because it was not a curry, and was not a vegetable that was cooked until it died.

In preparation for a dinner party, I would fry off the cauliflower florets in the morning, and then an hour before the party, pop the florets in the oven at 100°C to warm up, and then 15 minutes before serving, start cooking the tomato chilli mix that will coat the florets.

Hope you like this recipe.

Serves: 8 people

Prep time: 30 minutes

Cooking time: 1 hour

Ingredients

1 large cauliflower, cut and boil all the florets for 10 minutes

1/4 cup plain flour

1/4 cup corn flour

1/2 tsp Bi Carb Soba

1 tsp cracked black pepper

1/2 tsp salt

2 eggs

Water if required

1 medium red onion, finely chopped

3 cloves of garlic, finely chopped

3 stalks of spring onion – white part thinly sliced in one bowl, green part thinly sliced in a second bowl

1 tbsp tomato sauce

1 tbsp chilli sauce

2 tsp soy sauce

1/2 tsp salt

Oil for frying

Instructions

1. Boil cauliflower florets for 10 minutes. Remove and drain well.
2. In a bowl make the batter. Mix together plain flour, corn flour, bi carb soda, 1/2 tsp black pepper, salt and two eggs. If your mixture is looking fairly stodgy, just add a smidge of water to loosen it up. Your batter shouldn’t be too thick, or too runny, it should be just enough to completely coat each floret. Test your batter with one floret before you chuck it all in (you can tell I already made that mistake).
3. Once you have tested your batter and are happy with it, then you can chuck all the florets in to coat them all.
4. Deep fry in batches until crisp or light golden brown, keep aside.
5. In a wok, heat 2 tbsp of oil. Add garlic and saute for 30 seconds, add the chopped red onion and the white part of spring onion, fry till soft and light brown.
6. Add tomato sauce, chili sauce, soy sauce, 1/2 tsp cracked pepper, salt and mix well. Add fried cauliflower florets and mix gently to coat florets with sauce, add finely chopped green part of the spring onion and mix well for a minute, off flame.
7. It is now ready to serve.