Tiffin recipes: Chilly Soya Manchurian & more

We invited Get Ahead readers to share quick-fix office recipes with us -- easily-prepared foods that takes less than an hour to whip up before you head to work in the morning. We've been flooded with responses and as part of an ongoing series, present three lunch recipes that you can carry in your dabba.

Here's how to prepare Chilly Soya Manchurian by Reshma Menon:

Ingredients:

• 250 gms Nutrela soya chunks
• 5 cloves of garlic (diced)
• Ginger and garlic paste
• 2 diced onions
• 1 diced capsicum
• 4-5 green chillies
• 1 tbsp soya sauce
• 1 tbsp chillie sauce
• 2 tbsp tomato sauce
• 2 tbsp cornflour
• A pinch of ajinomoto
• Salt to taste
• Cooking oil
• Juliennes of ginger to garnish

Method of preparation:

• Boil the soya chunks in a pressure cooker for three whistles.
• When they are drained of water and cooled, mash the soya chunks and mix in the ginger and garlic paste, a little salt and cornflour. When it reaches a dough-like consistency, break off slamm chunks and roll into small bite-sized balls.
• Deep-fry the soya balls in cooking oil till they turn brown in colour, then remove and set aside.
• In another frying pan, heat a little cooking oil and sauté the 5 cloves of garlic, onions, green chillies and capsicum. Once they start to brown, add in the soya sauce, tomato sauce, chillie sauce, ajinomoto and salt. Cook for a minute.
• Add in the soya balls to the veggies and sauces in the frying pan and mix well. Garnish with ginger juliennes -- your Chilly Soya Manchurian is ready to eat.

Renu sent in this recipe for what she calls Instant Aloo Biryani:

Ingredients:

• 1 cup rice (sufficient for two people)
• 1 large potato, sliced into 8 pieces
• 1 chopped onion
• 4 slit green chillies
• 1 pod of cardamom
• 5 peppercorns
• 2 whole cloves
• 2 small pieces of cinnamon
• Ginger-garlic paste
• Chopped coriander and mint leaves (pudina)
• Red chillie powder
• Coriander seed (dhania) powder
• Turmeric (haldi)
• Salt to taste
• Cooking oil

• Wash and soak the rice in water.
• In a pressure cooker heat some cooking oil on a high flame. Add in all the spices -- cardamom, peppercorns, cloves, cinnamon -- and the onion.
• Fry till the onions are reddish-brown and add the ginger-garlic paste. Then add the potato pieces and stir-fry briskly for half a minute.
• Lower the flame and add all the remaining ingredients one by one, except for the rice. Stir for a minute.
• Add one and a half cups of water and turn the flame up to high again.
• Season with salt and add the washed rice.
• Cover the pressure cooker and wait for 4 whistles (it should take just about 2 minutes).
• Switch off the stove and remove the cooker to where it can cool down.
• Once cooled, you can pack up your Instant Aloo Biryani for the office -- it tastes best with curd.
• Here are a few tips to save time -- the recipe looks like it may take awhile, but you just need a few simple tricks to make it easy and quick. Chop up onions on a Sunday and store in the refridgerator in a food-grade plastic bag or a zip-lock bag. Also store chopped coriander and mint leaves and store separately in the fridge, they can be added to any recipe to make it tasty. Put all the whole spices in one container, in separate zip-lock pouches -- it saves you time opening different jars and searching for them. Use a pressure-cooker as far as you can, it saves cooking time.

And finally, we have this Vegetable Pancake recipe contributed by Nidhi Chopra:

Ingredients:

• 3 tbsps Bengal gram flour (besan)
• 3 tbsps millet flour (jowar)
• 3 tbsps wheat flour (gehun ka atta)
• 1 small onion, chopped
• 1 tomato, chopped
• 2 tbsps chopped coriander
• 2 green chillies, finely chopped
• Salt to taste
• Red chillie powder to taste
• Ajwain
• Oil for cooking

Method of preparation:

• Mix together all the ingredients in a bowl and add enough water to make a batter of thick consistency.
• Heat and grease a non-stick griddle (tawa).
• Spread a layer of the batter on the griddle to form a pancake about 4 mm thick.
• Flip over from time to time till both sides are golden-brown, using a little oil to baste.
• You should be able to make about 4 pancakes, which you can then pack into your office tiffin.

Channel your inner chef and help people economise without compromising on their meals!