Chicken Manchurian

The secret to a flavorful Chicken Manchurian is the use of chicken stock. Marinated boneless chicken is deep fried and the golden balls are tossed with a cornflour based ginger-garlic concoction and garnished with a generous amount of spring onion greens. Serve hot to savor the true flavor of this Indo Chinese starter.

Chicken Manchurian RecipeMarination: 1 hr, Prep & Cooking: 45 mts
Serves: 5 persons
Ingredients:1/4 kg boneless chicken, cut into fine pieces
6-7 tbsps spring onion whites
3-4 tbsps spring onion greens
1/2 tbsp chopped garlic
1/2 tbsp chopped ginger
2 tsps soya sauce
1 tbsp chilli sauce
2 tsps vinegar
1 tbsp corn flour + 5 tbsps chicken stock or water
1/2 tsp brown sugar
2 tbsps tomato sauce
1/2 tsp red chilli pwd (preferably Kashmiri)
salt to taste
1 1/2 tbsps sesame oil
oil for deep frying
For marinade: (marinate chicken with below ingredients for at least 15 mts or 1 hr)
1/4 tsp pepper pwd
1 egg white
salt to taste
1 1/2 tsps ginger-garlic-green chilli paste
1/2 tsp soy sauce
1 tbsp maida/all purpose flour
2-3 tbsps corn flour
1-2 tbsps of water, if required

1 Heat oil in a heavy bottomed vessel, make small balls of the marinated chicken and carefully drop into the hot oil. Cook on low medium flame and towards the end of the cooking process increase flame to high and deep fry to a golden brown shade. Drain with a slotted spoon and place on absorbent paper. Keep aside.
2 Heat a heavy bottomed vessel, add oil, add the chopped garlic and saute on high flame for about 30 secs. Add the chopped ginger and green chillis and saute for a few more secs. Add the spring onion whites and saute for 3 mts on high flame.
3 Reduce to medium heat and add the brown sugar, soya sauce, tomato ketchup, chilli sauce and vinegar. Combine well and cook for 2 mts. Add 1/4 cup chicken stock or water and cook for a mt. Add the deep fried chicken balls and cook for 4 mts. Adjust salt, if necessary.
4 Add the cornflour water and cook, tossing the contents, for 4-5 mts. You will find that it becomes thick due to cornflour.
5 Add the chopped spring onion greens and combine. Garnish with more spring onion greens. Serve hot as a starter/appetizer.

Is that dead chicken on your plate?

Recent Research exposes the shocking practice of roadside Chinese bandis serving chicken delicacies made from dead stock purchased from poultry farms for half the price! Every other galli in Hyderbad has its own trademark roadside Chinese fast food bandi. And the 'cheap and best' dishes like chicken 65, chilli chicken, chicken lollipop, chicken manchurian that these street vendors dish out are immensely popular with everyone from the neighbourhood watchman to a sportscar high roller. But is that piping hot plate of deep-red chicken 65 safe for consumption? The truth will shock you!

I am not saying all the roadside Chinese bandis are using chicken but most of the people using dead chicken

It's not just the generous dose of ajinomoto, artificial color and stale oil that you should be worried about. In a shocking trend, many Chinese bandis are serving dishes made from chicken that died in poultry farms (dead stock)! Instead of being disposed off by incineration or burying, the decaying chicken get deep fried and find their way into your plate!

With the dead stock being sold by select poultry distributors at half the price of live chicken, Chinese bandi owners are only too happy to stock up on the dead meat to maximize their profit. That's not all. Even the seemingly harmless omelettes that are dished out at fast food bandis and kiosks that dot the city can pose a serious health hazard to street food junkies. The reason? Most of these roadside vendors buy cracked and stale eggs at subsidized rates.

Throwing light on this hazardous practice, a restaurant owner in Banjara Hills says, "It's one of the best-kept trade secrets among roadside vendors and a network of distributors who sell dead chicken. The stock is hidden from public view in the numerous cages stacked in the trucks or is delivered from poultry farms at odd times of the day. Even the cracked eggs are distributed early in the morning in rickety autos that go around selling them."

A trip to the city's busiest chicken market — the Nampally chicken market — brings to light this hushed sale of "cheapest" chicken. "We do sell cheap chicken — meat of dead poultry. I sell it to almost 80 per cent of Chinese bandis in the city and it comes at half the the price of live, healthy chicken. But you can't tell the difference between the two once its cooked," reveals a distributor in the Nampally chicken market.

There's more to worry about when it comes to eating Chinese bandi food, apart from the health hazards caused by the consumption of cooked dead stock, say animal activist NGOs. Bhuvaneshwari Gupta, nutritionist and campaign coordinator, PETA India, says, "Poultry farms disregard the most basic guidelines. Our investigations into poultry farms across India, including in Hyderabad, have shown that animal waste and dead fowl accumulate on the floor of poultry sheds. Meat, whether obtained from a dead bird or from a bird whose throat is slit with a dull knife in a filthy slaughter house, is equally unhygienic. The walls and floors of most slaughter houses are covered with urine, faeces, blood and pus. Eggs shells are contaminated with salmonella and other harmful microbes."

When we quizzed the Andhra Pradesh Poultry Federation about this shocking malpractice, D Sudhakar, president, says, "We always tell the farmers and breeders not to sell dead chicken, but to burn or bury them. We can't keep a constant watch on every poultry seller, but we can definitely advise them to refrain from resorting to such measures, in the interest of both the industry and the consumer."