During my college days in Jodhpur, Rajasthan there was only one restaurant - Gypsy who served Chinese dishes. Earlier noodles were the only known Chinese food to me. I can say Gypsy introduced me to the Chinese cuisine. It was my favourite place to hangout with friends...now there are so many restaurants which serve Chinese dishes.. BUT still you will not see street vendors selling Chinese. After my marriage when I came to Hyderabad I was surprised to see many bandi's (street vendors) selling Chinese.... Some how I was hesitate to eat street side food...but so many friends of mine praised about one particular bandi (near Gandhi statue,MG Road Secunderabad) who dishes out delicious Chinese fast food. I tried and found it delicious...so whenever I go there for shopping I made sure to pay a visit to that Chinese food bandi. Besides street vendors there are some fine Chinese restaurants also, like Mainland china. I learnt making ghobi manchurian from my Urmila masiji. After that there was no looking back & I learnt many Chinese dishes from books and friends....Here is one of them.

Ingredients (serves-2)

• 200gm Paneer(cottage cheese) cubes, regular or marinated
• Oil for frying

For Batter

• 3 tablespoon maida(all purpose flour)
• 2 tablespoon corn starch)
• 1 tablespoon ginger garlic paste
• 1 tea spoon tandoori powder
• salt to taste

For gravy

• 1 onion cut into sguare pieces
• 1 cup capsicum cut into square pieces
  of any colour
• 4 spring onions
• 1 green chilli chopped
• 2 tea spoon minced garlic
• 1 tea spoon minced ginger
• 2 cup water
• 1 tablespoon soya sauce
• 1 tea spoon vinegar
• 2 tablespoon tomato chilly sauce
• 1 tablespoon chilly sauce
• 1 tea spoon black pepper powder.
• 1 tea spoon sugar
• 2 tea spoon corn starch
• 2 table spoon oil
• salt to taste

Method

• Mix all the batter ingredients and make thick batter by adding little water.

• Heat the oil in the pan.
• Dip the paneer cubes in the batter and fry them in oil till they become golden in colour.Spread them out on an absorbent paper and keep aside.

• Make thin paste of corn starch by adding cold water. keep aside.
• Heat the oil in the pan. Keep the gas on high. Add ginger, garlic and green chilly fry them for a min. Add remaining vegetables one by one and fry them.
• Add salt, sugar, black pepper, , chilly sauce, tomato-chilly sauce, soya sauce, vinegar and 2 cup of water.Bring it to boil.
• Add corn starch paste and boil for a minute.

• Add paneer cubes and serve hot with noodles or rice.

Note:
Panner will get soggy if you keep it too long in the gravy ,if you are preparing well ahead of time add paneer in the gravy 10 min before serving.

Dry Paneer Manchurian
Some like Manchurian in dry form.The process is similar to wet Paneer Manchurian preparation. Don't add water and corn starch.

How to marinade Paneer?

Ingredients

• 1 cup curd
• 2tea spoon ginger garlic paste
• 2 tea spoon tandoori powder
• 1 tea spoon chat masala
• 1/2 tea spoon red chilly powder
• salt to taste

Method

• Hang the curd in a muslin cloth for 3-4 hours.

• Take it in a bowl.It will look exactly like sour cream,mix other ingredients and make a thick paste.
• Brush the panner cubes with the marinade mix and refrigerate it for 3-4 hours.

Short Cut

• If marination seems to be a long process ,you can use masala paneer.
• However the marinated paneer cubes are not required for the 'Wet Paneer Manchurian 'as wet gravy made with sauces, gives flavour to the paneer but if you are making 'Dry Paneer Manchurian', without gravy. I would suggest you to marinade paneer.