Almost every Indian can think back to those moments in their childhood when they would tug at their mother’s churidars, begging her to get Gobi Manchurian for dinner. The Indian millennial experience is incomplete without ‘Chinese’ take out. From the quintessential chili chicken to the many Manchurians sold in outlets in almost every Indian city, we’re taking a tour through Indo-Chinese cuisine and its origins to understand how it became the mainstay of thousands of restaurants all over the country.
As the famous Indian historian and food critic Pushpesh Pant once said, Indo-Chinese cuisine is “the result of several isolated encounters” that can be traced all the way back to the days of the Silk Road. Although little happened in terms of the fusion of both cuisines, the trade of spices along those routes would change both cuisines drastically in the years to come.
In 1778, when India was under British colonial rule, there was an influx of Chinese immigrants into the country via the erstwhile capital Calcutta. The immigrants left their homeland owing to a number of unfavorable conditions like civil war, drought, and poverty. Calcutta was a popular choice since it was the closest metropolitan city in the country that was accessible by land. The immigrants would quickly find jobs in various sectors of the economy, with most of their wives sharing a common vocation, that of restaurateurs.
Chinese restaurants grew in popularity over the years as they catered to immigrants and the local populace alike. Indian spices were prominently used in these outlets since Canton spices were not easily available in the country. This left chefs with little choice but to Indianize their recipes. One of the earliest corner shops to serve recipes concocted in this manner, Eau Chew, still stands to this day, a stone’s throw away from Tiretta Bazaar, Kolkata’s own chinatown.
The chefs in these Chinese restaurants also began incorporating Indian produce into their preparations, shifting their focus from authenticity to cost effectiveness and satiety. The food served at these restaurants did have a distinct flavor and drew an increasing number of customers, with Indians frequenting the outlets due to the exotic nature of Chinese cooking and the low cost of the food served. Several Chinese techniques, such as using a cornstarch slurry to thicken food or cooking using a wok, would seep into Indian street food culture over time.
In 1975, Nelson Wang, then a cook at the Cricket Club of India, revolutionized Indo-Chinese food. When a customer asked him to prepare a dish that was different from those listed on the menu, Wang prepared a stir fried dish with vegetables that was intended as an Indian preparation. He then flavored it with soy sauce, thickened the mixture with a cornstarch slurry, added diced chicken, and let the mixture run till the chicken had cooked through. Wang called his creation Chicken Manchurian as a tribute to the region of Manchuria in China.
Wang would go on to open a restaurant where he would serve different variants of the dish, swapping out the chicken for paneer or vegetables like cauliflower, baby corn, button mushrooms etc. Wang’s restaurant, China Garden, is still open today in Kemp’s Corner in South Mumbai.
Indo-Chinese food would gain prevalence all over the country, with Indian restaurants incorporating the popular dishes and preparations in their own menus. The inexpensive nature of the ingredients used and the simplicity associated with the cooking techniques required to create the dishes made it easy for any individual to pick up and master the style, regardless of their culinary background. The technique used for most starters like chili chicken, chicken manchurian, lemon chicken, schezwan chicken et al. are almost identical: batter the protein, fry until golden brown, add condiments (spices, acidifying agents, MSG, sauces), stir in a cornstarch slurry, and cook to taste. For vegetarian dishes, the chicken is swapped out for the vegetables.
Chinese noodle-based dishes like chow mein are also indispensable to Indo-Chinese cuisine. The preparation is derived directly from its Chinese counterpart, the distinction lying in the omission of Canton spices (the Indo-Chinese version uses ginger, chilies, and black pepper instead), the use of inferior soy sauce (most Indian-made soy sauces are cut down with water, contain added flavorings, and are colored in an effort to cut costs), and the optional use of cornstarch slurry. The Indo-Chinese version of the dish contains the addition of local produce, such as cabbage, carrot, and bell pepper. Chow mein may be prepared with chicken, just vegetables, or even with paneer.
Chop Suey is another popular noodle-based preparation made with deep fried hakka noodles and topped with an Indo-Chinese chicken gravy. Restaurants offer two options with regard to how the dish is served- the regular ‘Chinese’ style, or ‘American’ chop suey, with a sunny-side egg on top. Chop suey has various iterations across the globe, but is unique in the fact that it does not have a traditional parallel. The dish was concocted out of necessity by Chinese migrants around the world using various inexpensive ingredients, in keeping with dish’s name that means ‘odds and ends’.