Indo-Chinese Fried Rice

Dear foodies,

One of top things in my 'to eat' list during my trip to India was veg manchurian :) There is something soo addictive about Indo-Chinese cuisine and I can never have enough of it. Sweet corn soup, hot n sour soup, gobi/veg manchuria, fried rice, noodles, all of them are super delicious. And when I have left over rice, fried rice is the first thing that comes to my mind. The addition of tofu just makes it perfect, paneer does not make a good substitute here.

Indo-Chinese Fried Rice

Ingredients:

• 2 1/2 cups - Rice, cooked and cooled (any short grain rice) [brown rice would be a nice substitute]
  
• 3/4 cup - Vegetables - Carrots, French style green beans, capsicum (red, green, yellow) cut into thick matchsticks. Other choices are mushrooms, water chestnuts, baby corn, broccoli florets, bean sprouts
  
• 1/2 cup - Onions, cubed
• 10-12 nos - super firm Tofu, cubed (I used Sproutofu)
  
• 2 nos - Indian green chillies/ thai bird chillies, finely chopped
• 1/2 tsp - Garlic, minced
• 1/2 tsp - Ginger, minced
• 1/4 tsp - Red pepper flakes (optional)
  
• 2 Tbsp - Soy Sauce
• 1 tsp - Vinegar
  
• 3/4 Tsp - Black pepper, freshly ground
• 1.5 Tbsp - Oil
• Salt to taste

Method:

1. Drain the tofu, pat it dry and cut it into cubes. Drizzle some soy sauce over them and let it sit for 10-15mins. With the oven set to broil, spritz it with some oil and line the tofu cubes on a sheet pan and broil for 5-6 mins, flip them and broil for 5 more mins. Do keep an eye on them though, since oven temperatures vary.
2. Heat oil in a wide pan/wok. When hot, add the finely chopped green chillies, garlic, ginger and red pepper flakes. Give it 5 secs and add the cubed onions. Saute until they turn translucent.
   
3. On medium high heat, add the vegetables and stir fry for 2-3 mins. Add the soy sauce, vinegar, and freshly ground black pepper next. Saute until the vegetables are slightly tender but still retain crunch.
4. Add the tofu cubes along with the rice and very carefully stir to combine with the vegetables. Taste to see if it needs more salt/pepper and season accordingly. Toss lightly without breaking the rice grains.

Left over rice gets a brilliant make over with this dish. Its so flavorful and crunchy from the vegetables, and I love the heat from the black pepper. To me that defines the dish. I also add sprouts to it when I have them on hand. Tofu adds bulk to the dish, making it extremely filling. I've also grown to favor the brown rice version of the same dish, the nuttiness of the rice goes really well with the soy sauce.

Sweet Corn Soup

Dear Foodies,

Here's a bowl of soul warming soup. This dish was part of a Indo-Chinese dinner that my room mate and I had put together. My roomie, actually ex-roomie now :(, makes the best vegetable manchuria. It had been ages since she made some and we pestered her into making some for us. So we decided to make it a complete Indo-Chinese meal that night with her making the signature manchuria's & vegetable stir fry and I made this soup and vegetable fried rice. I'll come back with the recipes for all of them, and try getting a guest post in for the lip smacking manchuria's ( you can see a pic of them on my blog header)


Now coming back to the soup, we had two options in mind, a hot n sour soup or the sweet corn soup. The hot n sour soup was just plain soy sauce and since all the other dishes were already loaded with that ingredient I decided to try making the sweet corn soup. Its a extremely simple soup to make and very delicious. It gets your taste buds rolling and totally warmed up for a meal ahead. Alternately, you can add extra vegetables to it and have it with some fresh toasted bread to make it a meal in itself. I used frozen corn this time, but you can always substitute with fresh corn. It will only take a little longer to get tender.

Ingredients:

• 1 pack - frozen Sweet Corn (16 oz pack)
• 1 cup - Carrot, grated
• 1 cup - Cabbage, shredded/finely julienned
• 3 cups - Water/as per required consistency
• 2 Tbsp - Soy sauce/ as per taste
• 1 Tbsp - Vinegar/as per taste
• Salt and Pepper for seasoning (use freshly ground pepper)
  
• 1-2 Tbsp - cornstarch - Optional
  

Garnish:

• 3 nos - Green chillies (Indian chillies), chopped
• 2 Tbsp - Vinegar

Add the chopped green chillies to the vinegar and let it sit for awhile until you get the soup prepared.

• Coriander leaves

Method:

1. Heat water in a saucepan and drop the frozen corn into it and let it come to a boil. You don't have to necessarily thaw the corn, it will save you some time though.
2. Once the corn kernels get tender, turn off the heat and reserve 1/2 - 3/4 cup of corn to use as whole. After the rest of the corn cools down puree it in a blender or use a hand blender. I did not make it a smooth puree but preferred a slight grainy texture.
*Always wait till the ingredients cool down before you transfer them to a blender. When hot, the steam generated can force the lid of the blender to pop open, raining everything in it onto your kitchen and you might hurt yourself too, so always be cautious.*

3. Now transfer the pureed corn to the stove top and add the reserved corn, grated carrots and shredded cabbage to it and simmer. Also add the soy sauce and vinegar, adjusting as per your taste. The carrots and cabbage should not be cooked till tender, let them stay a little crisp from some crunch.
4. Adjust the consistency of the soup to your liking. If you want to thicken it add a spoon of corn starch mixed into cold water and allow the soup to come to a boil.
   
5. Add a little salt and pepper now for some base taste and leave the rest to be added while serving the soup.
6. Garnish with the vinegar soaked chillies and coriander leaves.

I loved this soup. Its what any dish should be, simple and delicious. The crunch from the carrots and cabbage is really nice and the whole corn kernels add to the texture. Its a nice little mouthful, especially when had with the chillies. The vinegar mellows the sharpness of the green chillies a little and they are a perfect compliment to the mild corn. Freshly ground pepper is a must in this soup, sweet corn and pepper go perfectly well together.

While replying to the comments I realized this soup could be the purrfect dish for Coffee's MBP-Going Lite. No oil, no butter vonly vegetabuls :)) :)) I had gone through a few recipes before I started making this soup(how can you be a blogger and not search in other blogs) and one of them was Shilpa's recipe and this one from Saroj's cookbook.