“The cuisine, which originated in Kolkata, is an India interpretation of Chinese food “
Kolkata is the birthplace of Indo-Chinese food which traces back to Hakka Chinese traders who settled in the city in the late 1700s when it was the capital of the British Empire in India. At that time, Chinese immigrants were largely silk traders, dentists, carpenters, and leather tannery owners and started cooking their food using local ingredients. After selling street food, they opened Indo-Chinese restaurants in Tiretta bazaar and Tangra, the two Chinatowns in Kolkata.
FUSION FLAVOUR
The cuisine in Indian interpretation of Chinese food, which combines the deep-fried, spicy flavors Indians love with a Chinese twist, through ingredients like soy sauce and vinegar. Indo-Chinese food has its own distinct flavors like Schezwan sauce, which uses dry red chilies as a substitute for Sichuan peppercorns. There is also Manchurian-style cooking, where meat and vegetables are battered and fried in a spicy soy-based sauce with classic Indian ingredients like garlic, ginger, and green chilies.
Indo-Chinese food has become popular all over India, especially in Mumbai, but its root has always been in Kolkata. It’s a huge part of the culture here, so much so that many Indians believe that the food is authentically Chinese. It’s colloquially referred to as Chinese food and is so widespread that it can be hard to distinguish its influences.
MANCHURIAN? IS THAT EVEN A DISH?
Not in China, no. But in India, it’s practically synonymous with Chinese food. The result of a request by a customer at China Garden, Mumbai original Indo-Chinese restaurant, to create something different from the menu, and owner Nelson Wang took cubes of chicken coated them in cornflour, and deep-fried them. Wang then prepared a red sauce with onions, green chilies, and garlic and slapped some vinegar and soy into it.
He popped the fried chicken dumplings back into the sauce and gave it a quick stir so that the flavors came together and served it with steamed or fried rice. The customers loved it. As nelson says, ”Word of mouth” spread the acclaim of this dish and today it is found in almost every menu that serves Chinese food in the country.
This word of mouth publicity inspired Nelson Wang to start his own restaurant china garden, which is a veritable Mumbai institution even today.
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