Manchurian candidate
How a Chinese dish was born in India
IT is a matter of history that wherever the Chinese migrated in the world, their culinary prowess and an ingrained sense of entrepreneurship would inevitably result in food beloved by their new homeland. The fast and furious way Chinese cooks commanded the flaming hot wok mesmerized many newcomers to oriental food with the smoking "breath of the wok" imparting a unique flavour never before tried. However, it was the knowledge of creating a multitude of sauces and turning cheap meat cuts and boring vegetables into rockstar dishes that would shape the world's cuisines.
Chop suey is a dish you'll see on almost any Chinese restaurant menu but it wasn't a dish from China. According to one culinary legend, the dish of stir-fried meat and vegetables was invented during the 19th century Gold Rush era in the USA. The story goes that one late night in 1849, a group of drunk miners piled into a Californian Chinese restaurant and were hungry. The owner was tired and ready to close up, so instead of whipping up dishes from scratch, he scraped scraps of food from previous customers' plates, added a sauce and served it to the miners. They loved it. And like that, chop suey was invented. The truth is that if we go to China, dishes like chop suey, egg foo yung, Hakka noodles and chicken lollipop are hard to find because they did not originate in China. But it is the development of Chinese cuisine in India that provides an exciting glimpse into how Indo-Chinese become a worldwide hit.
One of the most iconic Indian Chinese dishes is made by battering and frying prawns, cauliflower, or chicken and tossing it with a mix of ginger, soy sauce, and rice wine vinegar. Though it's almost always labelled "Manchurian" on menus, paradoxically, the dish most certainly would be found in India rather than in China or for that matter Manchuria—modern-day northeastern China. In fact, the dish is so popular in India that even McDonald's has periodically featured a Manchurian-style burger on its menu. So how did this happen?
In the early 1970s, the Taj Mahal hotel in Mumbai brought in chefs from the Sichuan province to create spicier versions of Chinese food for their Indian clients. These new dishes took off, and a prudent young chef named Nelson Wang paid attention to the growing trend when he noticed the customers in his restaurant asking for similar dishes infused with an extra boost of heat and flavour.
Born in Kolkata and raised in Mumbai, Chinese chef and restauranteur Nelson Wang is credited with its creation. Chicken Manchurian is a dish of diced chicken fried with a thick sauce of ginger, garlic and green chillies – an essential combination in Bengali cuisine – together with soy sauce and corn starch, and sometimes vinegar and ketchup. Wang invented the dish while a chef at the Cricket Club of India, in Mumbai, where he gained quite a following. When a customer requested to eat something new and off the menu, Wang grabbed chicken cubes, covered in cornflour and fried them before mixing them in a sauce made of Indian ingredients. Served alongside fried or steamed rice, the new recipe was an absolute hit with the customer. News of his new creation soon spread across the country as other restaurants and food carts copied his spicy sweet and sour dish. In 1983, he opened his own restaurant, China Garden, which is now a chain with outlets throughout India and Nepal. Wang and his family have been credited with spreading Indo-Chinese cuisine throughout India, especially in Hyderabad, Bangalore, Goa and Pune.
The differences between Indo-Chinese food and authentic Chinese food are many and striking. On the surface, an Indian's deep love for Chinese food might seem a bit perplexing but the marriage of texture and flavour brought about by the generous use of spices is key. Kolkata is where the first Chinese restaurants cropped up, and it is also the city that houses India's only Chinatown. Soon restaurants in Kolkata had large, shimmering works that sat on fiery stoves, filled with countless bowls of egg noodles tossed with hot green chillies and seasoned with a splash of chilli sauce and tomato sauce, chicken fried rice made with longgrain basmati, or the American chop suey, a dish composed of mixed vegetables and chicken in a sweet gravy that's topped with crispy noodles and a fried egg.
As time went on, these dishes started to adapt to their new surroundings, and the Indian preference for spice and heat began to influence a whole new cuisine. Dishes like chilli chicken, Sichuan paneer, and chicken noodles began to make appearances all over the country. A combination of spice, heat, and bold flavours helped to quickly endear these dishes to hungry Indians, and the number of restaurants started to grow quickly across the country. As customers demanded more, chefs got more innovative, and this eventually led to the birth of Manchurian chicken.
Today, Indo-Chinese food is an inseparable part of Indian culture, and it's practically impossible to find these unique dishes outside India or in cities where there's a sizable Indian population like Fiji. To say that the cuisine is overtly popular in India or Fiji is an understatement. Whether Chinese, Indo-Fijian-Chinese or Indo-Chinese, fiery or delicate, the rich history behind the amalgamation of Indian and Chinese cuisine promises to enrich and emerge newer fusion cuisines. And Fiji is a good place to start.