Research led me here. Well, research and memories.
I did not come up with “Manchurian Cauliflower”. Terrible name, by the way. It’s like produce that is actually a deep sleeper agent sent by Xi Jinping to disrupt and take over all God fearing, red blooded American cruciferous vegetables. Nonetheless, that’s apparently what the original version of this dish is called.
Do have any idea how much of a pain in the ass it is to research food by sense memories and a single ingredient? “Uh, yeah, Google. Look for cauliflower, Indian, maybe Pakistani, tangy, fried, sweet, crunchy.” I should probably go back.
I have this memory of this dish I had at a sketchy Indian buffet I drug some co-workers to many years ago. Is it drug or dragged? I have no idea. I know that for at least one of them, I’d have to drug him to get him to go back. Anyhoo. I love a good Indo-Pak buffet. So much variety to choose from, things I would never come up with; flavors, colors, textures. No commitment beyond what you could scoop onto your plate, sense it, and move on. Like I said, I love a good Indo-Pak buffet. This was not one of them. Like I said, it was sketchy, but it was close to my house, which was close to work so I talked them into going.
The place is gone now and rightfully so. It was disgusting, even by my dubious hole in the wall standards, and the food was “meh” as the 30 to 40-something generation say. But this one dish just stuck with me. Cauliflower florets, clearly battered and deep fried, tossed in a sweet, hot tangy sauce, not unlike sweet-chili wings. It was the texture that stuck with me. I will always be a texture slut and damned proud of it. That crunch was amazing, because you really couldn’t see the coating so much. But it was there, no so much encasing the veg, but sort of hanging out in it’s numerous crevices, reminding me that this soft thing was once a proud vegetable with crunch of its own.
I’ve been meaning to recreate it for years, but the long term weight management got in the way. Lucky for me I had a life transforming epiphany (psychotic break, whatever) and am now a food blogger. Still waiting for 3.5 million dollar house HGTV swears I can afford – my Kitchen of Darkness is really hard to film in.
As I said in the beginning, I did some research and the original dish seems to come from the Manchuria region of China which shares a border with India, maybe? I’m going to level with you, I don’t know. I also don’t care enough to check it out and be accurate. Maybe there’s some other GenX burnout out there who decided to start up AnotherDamnGeographer.com and you can go ask him. I’m here for the cooking.
Now my wife, that would be Mrs. Columbo, she’s really trying hard to stick to her low-calorie lifestyle and I feel just terrible, (not terrible enough, mind you), I keep knocking out some really decent eats of late. Better than I’ve done in years. I have secret ingredients I’ve started using again. They’re called calories. Now you know. Cook in peace.
Anyhoo, the nice thing about focusing on a non-starchy vegetable for a dish is it’s already low calorie. All you have to do is pick and choose where you’re going to add them without going over. Sort of a punitive, culinary Price is Right. Point is, I know how to make the full blown version of Manchurian cauliflower. But if I can make a lower calorie version, I can cook my low calorie cake and MrsDamnCook can eat it, too.
I’ll post a recipe when I’m happy with it. I’m certainly not there yet. The first time worked out perfectly, the second time, verifying everything was a bit lackluster. Both times I pan fried it, sincerely wishing I had a deep fryer. I don’t what I’m doing will ever work in an air fryer which totally works out because I don’t have one.
In the meantime, Happy Cooking.
