Simple, practical, and full of everyday flavour, Chilli Mushroom Recipe is a vegan, vegetarian Indo Chinese starters made with simple everyday ingredients in about 40 minutes. The recipe lays out the ingredients and each cooking step clearly, so you can adjust seasoning, texture, and serving size for your own kitchen.

Recipe Snapshot

  • Prep time: 20 minutes
  • Cook time: 20 minutes
  • Total time: 40 minutes
  • Yield: 2
  • Category: Starters
  • Cuisine: Indo Chinese

Ingredients

  • 200 to 250 grams button mushrooms (or baby portabella mushrooms)
  • 1 to 2 spring onions
  • 2 to 3 green chilies (- slit)
  • ¼ cup chopped capsicum (chopped into squares or cubes (optional) - can use red or green, yellow or red bell peppers)
  • 2 teaspoons finely chopped garlic cloves (or 7 to 8 small to medium garlic cloves)
  • 1 teaspoon finely chopped ginger (or 1 inch ginger)
  • 1 tablespoon soy sauce ((naturally brewed) or as required)
  • ½ tablespoon sesame oil (or any neutral oil - for the sauce)
  • ½ to ¾ teaspoon cornstarch
  • 1 to 2 teaspoons water
  • ½ to 1 teaspoon sugar (or as required)
  • salt (as required)
  • crushed black pepper (as required)
  • oil (- for shallow frying mushrooms, any neutral oil, as required)
  • 5 to 6 tablespoons whole wheat flour (or all-purpose flour)
  • 3 tablespoons cornstarch
  • ¼ to ½ teaspoon crushed black pepper (or add as required)
  • salt (as required)
  • ¼ to ⅓ cup water (or add as required)

Method

Preparation

  1. Rinse and wipe dry the mushrooms. Trim the stalks.
  2. Quarter them if larger in size and halve them if medium-sized. Keep the smaller ones intact and whole.
  3. Make a flowing medium consistency batter with the ingredients listed above "for the batter".

Frying mushroom

  1. Heat oil for shallow frying in a kadai or wok.
  2. Dip each mushroom slice in the batter and coat uniformly with the batter.
  3. Add them to the medium hot oil and fry till they are slight golden and crisp.
  4. Fry the batter coated mushrooms in batches and drain on paper towels to remove excess oil.

Making chilli mushroom

  1. In another wok (kadai) or pan, heat sesame oil or your preferred cooking oil.
  2. Add the spring onion whites and capsicum. Stir fry on medium or high heat for a minute.
  3. Add the finely chopped ginger, garlic and green chilies.
  4. Stir fry on a high heat until you see the onions getting browned at the edges. If the heat becomes too much then reduce it.
  5. Reduce the heat. Add the soy sauce, salt, sugar, black pepper and stir fry for half a minute.
  6. Add the fried batter coated mushrooms and stir on a low to medium heat.
  7. Sprinkle about 1 to 2 teaspoons of water and ½ to ¾ teaspoons cornstarch on the mushrooms.
  8. Mix very well and sauté for a minute or two. Continue to stir. This gives a nice glaze to the mushrooms.
  9. Switch off the heat and serve the chili mushroom hot with veg fried rice, bread or even roti or naan.
  10. Garnish with spring onion greens while serving.

Kiyaan Singh’s Kitchen Note

Keep this recipe as a working base: cook once as written, then adjust spice, texture, and serving style for your own table.