Backstory:

I saw this dish on MasterChef Season 11 where contestant Mandy Hall made this dish – Shish Barak – and it looked soooo good! And it was so good that she got a chance to fight for immunity also. And I tried to make an ‘Indian’ version of it and DAMN it’s good!! The original recipe called for lamb mince, but I didn’t have it and also thought i’d try a vegetarian version – so it’s mushroom! So enjoy!!

You need:

For Red Butter Sauce:

• 1 red capscium
• 3 cloves garlic
• 1 tbsp olive oil
• 100 gms salted butter
• 1 tbsp chilli powder/smoked paprika

Dumplings:

• 1 1/4 cup maida
• 1/2 cup water
• 1 tsp salt
• 400 gms button mushrooms
• 1 onion, chopped
• 4 cloves of garlic, chopped
• 1/4 cup cooked peas
• 8 slivered almonds/pistachios

Yoghurt sauce:

• 500 gms hung curd
• 1 tsp cornflour
• salt to taste
• 1 egg (optional)
• garlic bread seasoning (optional)

How to:

1. Preheat oven to 240 C – (if you don’t have an oven you can roast the red capsicum over the flame like you do with brinjal/eggplant/baingan). Coat the capsicum with olive oil and then bake on a baking tray for 20 minutes until the skin gets blistered and blackened.

2. While that’s baking, start on your dumpling filling – chop up onion, garlic, mushroom finely (it should be finely chopped coz one smalllll teaspoon of it has to go into the dumpling).

3. In a pan heat some oil and fry the onion & garlic until it becomes golden brown. Then add the mushrooms and fry for 5-6 minutes until it becomes half its size and dark brown – set aside to cool.

4. Take a bowl and add maida, salt and water and knead until it comes together in a dough ball aka dough bebe and cover with a towel and set aside.

5. By now the capsicum should be cooked and cooled – remove the skin and seeds.

6. Put the pulp into a mixie/blender with 3 garlic cloves and pulse until you get a smooth paste

7. Heat your butter in a saucepan and add this mix to it + chilli powder and stir on low heat for 5 minutes and set it aside to cool (you’re doing this to cook down the garlic & chilli powder and incorporate the butter and red pepper paste / it will separate in a bit)

8. Put a separate big vessel filled with water for boiling. Roll out your dumplings now – separate the dough into four sections and roll out a thin long layer of each, using a cup to cut out circles – each should give about 10-12 depending on the size of your cup

9. Add 3 tbsp of the red pepper butter sauce to the mushroom filling and mix and taste (add more salt if needed)

10. Now take a tiny teaspoon of mushroom, add it to the centre of the dumpling wrapping.

11. Fold it over, pressing the edges together properlyyy (there shouldn’t be any gaps) and then join the two edges together (looks like an elongated tortellini) – repeat until you have rolled all your dumplings

12. By now your water should be boiling and put all your dumplings in (gently coz it’ll be HOT) – let it cool until it floats up to the top and then wait for it to become 80% transparent (about 5-6 minutes)

13. While your dumplings are cooking, start on your yoghurt sauce – put 450 gms yoghurt in a pan. In a bowl whisk together 50 gms yoghurt, 1 tsp cornflour and 1 egg yolk together. (skip the egg yolk if you want – it adds extra a richness to the sauce, the cornflour will anyway make it creamy)

14. Then add this mix to the yoghurt in the pan and keep whisking on low flame for about 10 minutes until creamy. DON’T PUT IT ON HIGH FLAME you’ll get scrambled eggs (: – season with salt and if you feel it’s too eggy, add garlic bread seasoning (basically garlic will counter the egginess)

15. Ok so by now, you would take out your dumplings and place them on a baking tray lined with a tea towel/any cotton cloth – I tried with paper tissue and they ended up sticking to the dumplings. Time for assembling! I put a nice dollop of the yoghurt sauce, gently place the dumplings over it and then top it with the red pepper butter sauce, peas and almonds

Enjoy!

Tips:

• If you don’t like the butter separating from the red pepper puree, you can blend it once again after cooking to emulsify it together (that’s what I did)
• Make sure you seal the edges of the dumplings PROPERLY before you put it in the hot water – otherwise the water gets inside and the dumpling explodes in the pot
• Don’t roll out your dumpling wrappers too thin, or yes they will explod/tear while cooking in the pot. I’d say 0.5 cm thickness is good (it shouldn’t look too translucent when rolled out