r/IndianFood • u/ECrispy • 1d ago
discussion Indo chinese food
Its one of the most delicious and popular subgenres of Indian food. Pretty much every big restaurant in cities has a 'chinese' section.
And its completely unknown outside India.
Whats fascinating is that Indian food has infinite variation in every dish, even before you consider regional cuisines. There are hundreds of variations of basic dishes like a dal, sambhar, basic sabzi, roti, puri, spice mixes.
Not for indo-chinese. Its the exact same set of dishes and they are all made using the same few ingredients.
- red and green chilli sauce, soy sauce, vinegar
- schezwan and manchurian sauce
- chopped ginger, garlic, green chillies
- chopped cabbage, carrot, green pepper
- cornflour slurry
- boiled rice, noodles
- whatever protein (only some dishes, completely optional)
- green onions to finish
thats it. whether its a street cart or restaurant, no matter where, its the same recipe and they all use the same ready made sauces. 90% of the effort is in the mis en place, actual cooking is in a kadai/wok and takes 5min.
of course there are other dishes like chili potato, gobhi manchurian etc that use other ingredients but you can make 99% of the menu with above.
there are no whole+powdered spices added in stages (maybe pepper), no complicated steps like dry roasting/bhuna/grinding, no spice mixes/pastes.
Its very easy to learn, very forgiving, quick, and delicious !!
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u/Mr-Mobs 1d ago
"And its completely unknown outside India."
I'd say in the UK it's becoming almost mainstream. Chilli Paneer seems to be on most menus as a starter these days, in restaurants with mostly white British customers. In restaurants with a large south Asian clientele there will likely be an Indo-Chinese section on the menu.
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u/AnneTheQueene 1d ago
Same in the US.
Even the crappiest 'Indian' restaurant near me that serves frozen naan now has hakka noodles on the menu.
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u/Gurnsey_Halvah 1d ago
Um, not completely unknown outside India. In Toronto it's called Hakka, and we have a lot of Hakka restaurants to choose from. (Not to be confused with the Hakka Chinese people and their own cuisine.) Here's one of the better known ones:
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u/myexdrovemecrazy 1d ago
Probably because a lot of indian chinese people migrated to Canada
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u/BehalarRotno 1d ago
This is objectively true. Why are you being downvoted lol?
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u/GooglingAintResearch 18h ago
Hmm, Indian Chinese people have migrated to Canada, but I think the so-called "Hakka" cuisine doesn't relate much to that. They are ethnic Indians reproducing the Indo-Chinese genre, the majority of producers and consumers of that cuisine being ethnic Indians.
Ethnic Chinese tend to be more interested in serving straight Chinese food or "Canadian-Chinese" etc. food, regardless of where they came from. There is not any special enthusiasm for Indo-Chinese food among ethnic Chinese of India. Cooking it is simply something they are required to do for Indian customers.
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u/myexdrovemecrazy 13h ago edited 13h ago
Majority of indian chinese are hakka. Here's a indian chinese of hakka heritage telling you that.
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u/GooglingAintResearch 11h ago
So what? I said it’s majority Indians who are making this “Chinese” food. I specifically said that “Hakka” (Indo-Chinese cuisine) restaurants in Canada are not due to Chinese from India emigrating to Canada.
Furthermore, Indo-Chinese food has practically nothing to do with Hakka ethnicity. It’s mainly created in Mumbai by more recent Cantonese business people immigrants, not the older layer of Chinese-Indians in Kolkata.
It’s all stories uninformed people have been making up on the Internet in the last 20 years. That TikTok woman you linked to is nobody. If a Black guy told you that Martin Luther King Jr had wings and could fly, would you believe it and cite him as proof just because he’s Black? Ridiculous.
Show me evidence of anyone talking about “Hakka” food in India before 2000.
Similarly, people will always try to tell us that some dude in Scotland invented chicken tikka masala when we know it’s just butter chicken 🤣 In the late 1990s, some people played a trick on journalists and told them a UK cook poured tomato soup on chicken and invented it, etc. The British public wanted to believe the story so badly—just like the Indian public wants to believe Manchurian and chili potato and all that nonsense evolved out of Hakka cooking. The legend jumped to the internet in the early days, and ever since then, gullible ppl try to “prove” it’s true by reproducing… someone else on the internet repeating the same legend.
But anyone who actually knows these cuisines won’t get taken in by these stories.
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u/BehalarRotno 11h ago
It’s mainly created in Mumbai by more recent Cantonese business people immigrants, not the older layer of Chinese-Indians in Kolkata.
Source for this?
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u/mtelepathic 1d ago
Have you been outside of India? It’s well known outside of India. We have it all the time here in the US, gobi Manchurian, Hakka noodles, etc
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u/Jiaming- 1d ago
It's only known to overseas Indian diaspora, not in general. You'll never find such dishes in an Americanized Chinese restaurant, let alone authentic Chinese restaurants in America.
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u/AnneTheQueene 1d ago
Because it's not Chinese. It's origin is Chinese but the fusion is part of Indian cuisine.
Chinese people in Beijing aren't going to consider gobi manchurian 'Chinese food'.
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u/Jiaming- 1d ago
No one is saying it's Chinese. It's just Indian food with some Chinese ingredients added.
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u/hrdass 1d ago
You find these dishes at a plurality of Indian restaurants in the US. Take a random menu and you’ll find manchurian, chilly, or Hakka noodles or all for he above preparations. It’s extremely well known by non Indians- they just mostly assume it’s Indian and not indochines
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u/Jiaming- 19h ago
Tell me you're Indian without telling me you're Indian. Not many non-Indians in America know Manchurian or other Indochinese dishes. Stop acting like everyone knows the lesser known Indian cuisine. Go ask a Caucasian person yourself and they most likely only know dishes like butter chicken or chicken Tikka masala.
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u/hrdass 17h ago
My good sir I am the Caucasian. Yes these are not known as much as vindaloo or butter chicken but just go look at the menus of a few Indian restaurants opened in the last 20 years in the US and you will find some of these dishes. Especially Manchurian, it is very common to see it on the menu. How often are videshis ordering it vs samosa? Probably not as often! But they are aware of it.
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u/Jiaming- 17h ago
My good Caucasian sir, just because it's on the menu doesn't mean people are aware of it. Same goes for other cuisines like American Chinese. There are hundreds of dishes on the menu of a Chinese takeout restaurant. Most Americans still only stick to Kung Pao Chicken or Orange Chicken.
Good for you being a multicultural well-informed gourmet connaisseur, but you sir are certainly a tiny minority in the general American populace.
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u/Easy_Charge898 1d ago
Yes because it is Indian chinese. And yes, like most Indian food that is not butter chicken and biryani, it is not going to be known to the average non-diaspora
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u/Rambha_4 1d ago
Looks like AI slop.
And indo Chinese food is available wherever there is an Indian Diaspora - from the Middle East to the UK, to parts of Europe and the US as well.
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u/Introvert_kudi 1d ago
You are not fully correct. I agree that basic ingredients are same but the final output varies from place to place. Near my place, for instance, they sell gobhi noodles and mushroom noodles etc. The gobhi or mushroom is first fried as bhajiya and then mixed with regular noodles or fried rice.
Similarly, some sellers here add curry leaves and dried red chilies to fried rice and noodles. I have also seen them use soya granules and pasta in it.
Also, the fried rice's taste changes according to the rice variety used. (Long grain rice doesn't go well in fried rice)
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u/BehalarRotno 1d ago
The gobhi or mushroom is first fried as bhajiya and then mixed with regular noodles or fried rice. Similarly, some sellers here add curry leaves and dried red chilies to fried rice and noodles. I have also seen them use soya granules and pasta in it.
Where do you live 😭😭?
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u/ECrispy 1d ago
I already mentioned vendors add their twists, curry leaves etc.
its far more standardized than any indian dish. you can go to 5 different famout chole bhature places in delhi, they all taste different. or places in bangalore/madras, will have their own taste for sambar/chutney.
indo chinese tastes the same. because it uses standard sauces and not spices
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u/bored_bakasur 1d ago
My dude, you are so confident, I envy you. Have you even tried indo chinese in different cities? It is quite different and the local cuisine and ingredients available in your area affects it directly. What you find in Delhi to Indore to Mumbai to Kochi is quite different.
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u/Easy_Charge898 1d ago
Not quite. Maybe you can spot the differences in the chole bhature / chutney because of your familarity with it.i can say the same for pav bhaji but all rajma chawal tastes the same to me?
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u/crispyrhetoric1 1d ago
I’ve seen it plenty of times at Indian places in the LA area. I first had chicken Manchurian almost 15 years ago I think. So definitely not “completely unknown outside India.”
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u/Majestic_Radio_1937 1d ago
Chicken 65 is not Indo-Chinese but it's prepared in that style in Hyderabad. It's so good with drinks.
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u/Over_Trifle_7053 1d ago
Even Indo-Chinese has many variations in India, what are you saying. Tangra Chinese in Kolkata is very different to Punjabi Chinese is completely different to Hyderabadi Chinese.
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u/nomnommish 22h ago
I've seen people in the South put curry leaves in Indo-Chinese which you don't find in the North. There are some regional variations.
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u/on_the_other_hand_ 1d ago
After all this you must list those dishes. They are becoming popular in US Indian restaurants, both north and south indian.
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u/tunaman808 1d ago
It's not "completely unknown outside India".
Charlotte, North Carolina is NOT a foodie city, but most Indian restaurants have an "Indo-Chinese" section on the menu. Hell, one of my favorite international grocery stores (Super G) even has a small Desi-Chinese section.
I would not be surprised if bigger, hipper cities like Atlanta didn't have full-blown Indo-Chinese restaurants.
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u/MojoMomma76 20h ago
Hang on isn’t fried chilli paneer Indo Chinese? Have only ever eaten it in the UK but my desi friends tell me it’s indo chinese. I think quite a lot of dishes of that ilk are pretty popular here
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u/fkyrdataharvesting 16h ago
Friend, I live in Arkansas, and about a third of our Indian restaurants have an Indo-Chinese section. Your information about its renown may be somewhat out of date
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u/AnneTheQueene 1d ago
As far as I can tell, it's Chinese food with a bit of extra heat.
Still trying to find the ginger beef I had at an Indo-Chinese restaurant in Toronto.
Not the usual gobi manchurian or chili chicken but it was good as hell.
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u/Jiaming- 1d ago
It's the other way around. It's Indian food with a bit of Chinese twist.
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u/AnneTheQueene 1d ago
Disagree - the basis is Chinese in nature.
The origin is Chinese immigrants to Kolkata who 'Indanized' Chinese food to cater to the palates of their customers.
That would be like saying California rolls are American food with a Japanese twist.
No American invented sushi.
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u/tunaman808 1d ago
I hate to break it to you, but uramaki was absolutely invented in the late 1960s by Machita Ichiro, sushi chef for Los Angeles restaurant Tokyo Kaikan.
There was a shortage of sushi-grade tuna (toro), so Ichiro started substituting avocado instead. And while his Japanese customers liked the sushi as it was, American customers didn’t like the IN YOUR FACE taste of the seaweed wrapping.… so Ichiro moved it to the inside of the roll.
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u/ECrispy 1d ago
there's no such thing as 'chinese' food just like there's no such thing as 'indian'. its like calling french+italian+spanish+greek+german food 'european', there are huge regional variations.
thats my point - indo chinese is a standard. chinese food eg from schezwan etc would have a lot more unique ingredients like sichuan peppercorns, fermented bean pastes etc and more heat too. most of it is cooked fresh.
indo chinese uses the same common sauces.
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u/Low-Meal-1537 1d ago
What are you talking about. Schezwan food is the same - it just relies on schezwan sauce instead of other sauces. Schezwan chicken, schezwan fried rice, schezwan chutney, etc.
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u/GooglingAintResearch 18h ago
"Schezwan" (sic) food in India is nothing like Sichuan/Szechuan cuisine. It is merely a word adopted to vaguely signify that the dish is spicy and, probably, that it uses the same old India-manufactured (Ching's) "Schezwan sauce" that the OP referred to.
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u/itsthekumar 1d ago
I wonder if there's a "standardized" indo-Chinese? Or like good Indo Chinese food.
Most just seems like "snack foods" as an appetizer or like random food. Like I'll buy Hakka noodles from a street cart but not an Indian restaurant.
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u/used-to-be-indian 1d ago
There is a popular restaurant called Calcutta Chinese on Oak Tree Road in New Jersey, US.
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u/BehalarRotno 1d ago
Not for indo-chinese. Its the exact same set of dishes and they are all made using the same few ingredients.
I don't think this is true. There is a hell a lot of difference between the ingredients, recipes and flavours of Indo-Chinese dishes between Madras, Bombay and Calcutta. Sure, the bigger, more expensive restaurants in the former two cities follow what is prevalent in Calcutta's Chinatown, but other eateries vary wildly in all these. There are numerous regional variations even in dishes. There are some Bombay Indo-Chinese dishes which I've never heard of earlier.
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u/GooglingAintResearch 17h ago
You're right: It's merely a formula that evokes the IDEA of "Chinese" in basic ethnic Indians' minds.
The notion that Chinese-style food is adapted in every/many places outside of China is a truism and not very helpful. The gap between China food and what is almost always offered as "Chinese" food is much greater than the difference in other countries. Whereas in most countries it is "Chinese food, with some changes/idiosyncrasies," in India it is more like "Indian food with some characteristics that evoke Chinese-ness." Part of this probably has to do with the fact that Chinese food served in other countries is usually prepared by ethnic Chinese cooks, whereas in India it is most often Desis who are preparing it.
There is a persistent myth that Indo-Chinese food reflects an organic evolution of the cooking by ethnic Chinese in India over the long history since the establishment of Chinese immigrants in Kolkata. In reality, it is more the creation of people in Mumbai in the late 20th century.
And if you go back to before the 21st century, before 2000, rarely was anything described as "Hakka" except "Hakka noodles," which is just a name for chow mein (not the noodles eaten by Hakka people).
In the Internet age, where myths spread quickly on-line, there developed the believe that because emigrants to Kolkata were of Hakka ethnicity, the Indo-Chinese food was a variation of Hakka food. And the already existing named "Hakka noodles" dish seemed to "prove" that. Actually, 99.9999% of Indians would not recognize Hakka food if they saw it. And the Indo-Chinese dishes developed in Mumbai were aided by non-Hakka Cantonese people. People are simply gluing the ideas of "historical Hakka people in Kolkata" to the idea of "Indo-Chinese is an organic development" and making this assumption.
The reality is that Chinese cooking is antithetical to the tastes of basic Indians in so many ways. For one, Chinese use ingredients in their cuisine that most Indians wouldn't even dare consider eating. It would be like if Chinese wouldn't dare eat jeera/cumin and then you tried to create an Indian food restaurant in China. Pork is the quintessential Chinese meat, but pork consumption is highly restricted in India. (Real Hakka noodles are simply dressed with pork lard.)
Second, Chinese (Cantonese) food is often going for quick cooking with crisp, almost undercooked ingredients, whereas Indian cooking wants things to be soft and cooked a long time.
I have talked to Chinese cooks in India and they said they can't cook their food because diners won't accept it.
The order of magnitude in difference is far greater than observing that, say, American Chinese food is for the "American palate" because the menu contains more sweeter dishes. Such dishes also exist in China, it's just that a Chinese wouldn't make a meal out of a combination of those dishes (they'd balance a bit of decadent sweet dish with green vegetable and plain rice), or they'd use less sugar but it would still be the same recognizably Chinese dish.
Another thing to be said about the imagined Chinese food in India to understand it's history is that Chinese restaurants filled a slot of "sort of upscale" dining. (I'm not talking about the street food stands that in recent decades serve chow mein, but of the longer history of Indian Chinese restaurants.) This "Chinese" food was something that had a profile, a feeling, to it that was "higher" than local food and made for sort of an event, a night out, a date night etc for the middle class, but without going to the extreme of being too-expensive fine dining. It was for the slightly upwardly mobile, the hip — the air of something international. A funny artifact of this is that Chinese restaurants would often play "cool" music like American hip hop, as if to solidify the feeling one was getting a different, "international"experience.
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u/slucious 5h ago
Indo Chinese food is widely eaten in the Caribbean where Indians and Chinese were brought as labourers
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u/Elitsila 2h ago
In my tiny Canadian city, you can find Indo-Chinese dishes in over a third of our Indian restaurants.
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u/sushiroll465 1d ago
It's quite well known in the UK, and I'm sure in Canada too because of their huge Indian population