Category Archives: cauliflower

cauliflower macaroni cheese

Posted by Gary in breadcrumbs, cauliflower, cheese, macaroni, pancetta, pasta and tagged with

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Not quite a 30 minute meal. It’s simpler than that. It’s yanked from Jamie’s 30 minute cauliflower macaroni, chicory salad with insane dressing, and lovely stewed fruit. But I only fancied the cauliflower macaroni bit.

I loused up the recipe a bit – I somehow ended up blitzing the cheese with the lovely breadcrumbs, which meant the topping was cheesy but the sauce too bland. Stupid spud. I still feel like the whole thing could use a little more seasoning though.

Cauliflower macaroni:

8 rasher of pancetta

1 head of cauliflower, quartered

300g macaroni

Large sprig of rosemary, leaves picked

200g cheddar

2 thick slices of bread

2 cloves of garlic

150g creme fraiche

  1. Get the oven on 220°C. Lay the pancetta in a baking tray ready to take the finished dish and pop in the oven while you carry on.
  2. Put the cauliflower and the macaroni in a large pot and fill with boiling salted water, and keep on the simmer.
  3. Get the food processor out with the chopping blade. Get the pancetta out of the oven and whizz this up with the bread, rosemary and a dash of olive oil.
  4. Drain off the cauliflower & pasta and reserve some of the water. Tip the veg/mac into the roasting tray you used for the pancetta and put on a low heat. Pour in a little water, crush in the garlic and mix in the creme fraiche and cheddar. Mix everything right up, adding more water and seasoning as necessary to get a smooth, silky sauce. Spread out evenly, top with the breadcrumbs and bake in the oven for about 10 minutes, or until bubbling.

roasted cauliflower rogan josh

Posted by Gary in cauliflower, chickpeas, curry

roasted cauliflower rogan josh

I’ve been on a mad rush of curries lately. With how much I’ve enjoyed Leon’s crispy roast cauliflower in the past few months, it occurred to me that this method of cooking is identical to the tikka style of barbecuing the meat separate to the sauce. With the addition of lentils to make it a fuller meal and Patak’s taking care of the spices, this was a glorious curry.

Roasted cauliflower rogan josh:

1 head of cauliflower, hacked to florets

2 carrots, chopped into chunks

1 tablespoon sunflower oil

1 teaspoon cumin seeds

1 tablespoon coriander seeds

Sprinkle of black onion seeds

1 teaspoon paprika

½ teaspoon turmeric

For the sauce:

2 onions, sliced

2 tablespoons Patak’s rogan josh curry paste

1 tin tomatoes

1 tin lentils

  1. Preheat the oven as high as it will go. Scatter the veg in a large baking tray. Mix the spices with the oil and drizzle over the cauliflower and carrots. Sprinkle with salt and toss liberally to coat everything. Roast for 45 minutes or until the cauliflower starts to blacken.
  2. When the veg has had about 30 minutes in the oven, prepare the sauce. In a large casserole sweat the onions in a little oil for about 10 minutes until starting to turn golden. Add the spice paste and stir for a minute to get it going.
  3. Add the tomatoes, then chuck in the lentils (including the water they come in). Bring up to a boil and simmer quite vigourously for about five minutes. The veg should be ready at this point so bring out of the oven and throw the lot into the casserole. Stir and check for seasoning (salt? Lemon juice?), then serve with naan.

quick cauliflower dhal

Posted by Gary in cauliflower, curry, lentils

quick cauliflower dhal curry

This dinner was made super-fast by the addition of two dead handy ingredients: Waitrose Cooks’ Ingredients Onion Curry Base and Patak’s Balti paste. This wiped so much time off the cooking, all I was waiting for was the cauliflower to get tender. The Waitrose onion curry base is particularly great; sweet, spicy and tender onions, garlic, ginger and chilli in a jar sweated down. Look out for them.

Quick cauliflower dhal:

Half a jar of Waitrose Cooks’ Ingredients Onion Curry Base

Half a jar of Patak’s Balti paste

1 head of cauliflower, broken into florets

1 litre vegetable stock

1 tin green lentils, drained

1 tablespoon double cream

  1. Heat a little oil in a deep pan and add the onions. Cook for a minute and stir in the curry paste. Add the cauliflower and cook for another minute stirring to coat the cauli in the pastes.
  2. Add the vegetable stock and bring to the boil. After five minutes add the lentils and continue cooking until tender. Just before serving stir through some cream.

gobi tarka dall

Posted by Gary in cauliflower, curry, curry powder, lentils, turmeric, yoghurt and tagged with

gobi tarka dall

I can’t get enough cauliflower, and am always quick to toss out a few recipes for those that think it dull and dreary. I was dead pleased to see an article in the latest Delicious magazine devoted to the joys of the cauli. It’s not just for cauliflower cheese, y’know.

Gobi tarka dall (based on a recipe by Debbie Major):

150g puy lentils

300ml vegetable stock

2 teaspoons cumin seeds

1 large cauliflower, broken into florets

1 medium onion, chopped

6 garlic cloves, grated

1 teaspoon ground cumin

½ teaspoon turmeric

1 teaspoon Madras curry powder

200ml coconut milk

1 tin of tomatoes

1 tablespoon Greek yoghurt

Bunch of fresh coriander leaves

For the tarka:

2 tablespoons sunflower oil

1 teaspoon nigella seeds

1 teaspoon cumin seeds

3 cloves

  1. Rinse the lentils thoroughly then simmer them in the stock for 20 minutes until tender. Set aside.
  2. Heat a little oil in a pan, and drop in the cumin seeds. After 30 seconds or so they will spit and jump about so throw in the cauliflower and get some dark brown scorches on them. Remove to one side.
  3. In the same pan fry the onion until soft (about 10 minutes), then add the garlic. After a couple of minutes stirring add the cumin, turmeric and curry powder. Cook for a further minute, then add the coconut milk, tomatoes and cauliflower. Simmer for fifteen minutes, until the cauliflower is tender.
  4. Stir the lentils into the curry and season well with salt. Leave to simmer so everything is piping hot, then turn off the heat stirring in the yoghurt with some vigour (this will avoid separation). Throw some coriander over the top.
  5. For the tarka, get the oil sizzly hot and add the spices. After a minute’s crackling turn the heat off and toss the lot over the curry. Serve with soft and puffy naan bread.

crispy roast cauliflower

Posted by Gary in cauliflower, cumin, turmeric and tagged with

crispy roast spicy cauliflower

Another delight tweaked from Leon Fast Food. A quick and easy side dish. I suspected roasting cauliflower would render it quite dry, but surprisingly it’s still nice and juicy in the middle. I ran this one past one of the authors, who offered the following advice. I am going to make it again this weekend!

Crispy roast cauliflower:

1 head of cauliflower, slashed into florets

1 tablespoon cumin seeds

1 teaspoon turmeric

  1. Preheat the oven to 180ºC. Scatter the ingredients in a large roasting tray and toss with plenty of oil, salt and pepper. Roast for 30 – 40 minutes, until you get “crispy brown bits at the edge.”

smoky cauliflower frittata

Posted by Gary in cauliflower, egg, food, paprika and tagged with

A punchy treat from Yotam Ottolenghi’s new book Plenty. It’s a cauliflower frittata packed with smoky flavours. I used scamorza (you can buy it, or make your own as I did here), smoked paprika and smoked sea salt to amp up the aromatic flavour. It’s also important to ‘toast’ the cauliflower in a pan before pouring the egg mixture in to accentuate the cauli’s nutty aroma. This is really good – really good – and I even had it the next day cut into cubes and reheated in the oven. It left a lovely smoky flavour in the mouth a good while later. Very tasty indeed.

Smoky cauliflower frittata:

1 head of cauliflower, cut into florets

Smoked sea salt

4 tablespoons creme fraiche

6 eggs

2 teaspoons dijon mustard

2 teaspoons smoked paprika

1 spring onion, sliced

150g scamorza, grated

50g cheddar, grated

  1. Preheat the oven to 180°C.
  2. Parboil the cauliflower in salted water for 4 minutes, then drain. While it boils, whisk together the eggs, creme fraiche, mustard, paprika, onion plus two thirds of the cheeses. Season with smoked sea salt and white pepper.
  3. Fry the cauliflower in a little oil for a couple of minutes, without stirring, until the underside starts to brown. Pour over the egg mixture and when the edges start to set scatter the remaining cheese on top. Transfer to a hot oven for 15-20 minutes until set to your liking (I like mine past wobbly).
  4. Cut into wedges and serve with a green salad.

dhania gobi

Posted by Gary in carrots, cauliflower, coriander, courgettes, cumin, curry, food
dhania gobi

dhania gobi

I’ve gone a bit curry mad lately. A recent rerun of Floyd’s Indiadidn’t help, and Gordon Ramsay’s latest seriesisn’t going to quash it either. So tonight I really fancied yet another home-brewed curry.

A quick aside: I can’t find a gospel on how Indian food should be named. Sometimes it’s named by method (balti), sometimes by ingredient (dhansak = double onion). I don’t know what the formula is. So I’ve decided to make my own rules too, smashing the Indian terms for coriander and cauliflower together, to reach dhania gobi. I could’ve gone with vegetable masala, or courgette bargar, or carrot jeera. So pardon me for slapping almost any old name on it, but I like the exotic sound. (If anybody knows the real ‘rules’, let me know).

I had courgette, cauliflower and carrot on hand, so they were a lock. Then it was a case of picking and choosing my spices. Coriander ended up going in twice and was the main flavour, so it packed quite a citrussy punch. A little yoghurt at the end helped both thicken and sour the dish, and was pretty pleased with the result. This won’t be the last curry I cook this season, I’m sure!

Dhania gobi:

1 tablespoon coriander seeds, cracked

1 teaspoon cumin seeds, cracked

2 inch cassia bark

1 onion, sliced

1 tablespoon garlic and ginger paste

½ teaspoon turmeric

½ teaspoon garam masala

1 teaspoon tomato puree

2 carrots, diced

2 courgettes, diced

½ head cauliflower, diced

1 litre vegetable stock

2 tablespoons plain yoghurt

1 tablespoon ground almonds

Chopped coriander leaves

  1. Fry the coriander seeds, cumin and cassia in a little oil for a minute. Add the onion and soften.
  2. Add the paste, turmeric, garam masala, puree and a pinch of salt and stir for another minute. Add the vegetables and coat well with the onion masala.
  3. Add the stock and bring to the boil. Turn down to a simmer and continue to cook for 15 minutes or until the veg is tender.
  4. Take off the heat and stir in the yoghurt and almonds. Serve topped with coriander leaves.

chicken tikka masala

Posted by Gary in cauliflower, chicken, curry, food, rice and tagged with ,

chicken tikka masala with gobi masala and aromatic rice

Every couple of months I get the urge to make another curry, and I’ve made plenty in the last year. It was a Saturday dish, so I had to time to put a little effort in. After a little research I settled on Jamie Oliver’s chicken tikka masala from Jamie’s Dinners. I still had some garam masala left over from a Heston-inspired blend some months ago so that was going to be my main spice base. Also with recent experiments in brining being met with a great deal of success I had to stick some brining in as the first stage. You could skip this bit if you wanted to, but I love the moistness and depth of flavour this imparts.

I wanted a vegetable side-dish and love the way cauliflower absorbs curry flavours. The key for me is to almost overcook it – a soft, squishy floret bursting with spice is the way to go here.

Plain rice is always sniffed at in my house so I have to be creative with it. I remembered a delicious rice dish by the cuddly Nigel Slater, from my most favourite of his books Appetite. I’ve eaten it before just on it’s own, but gently pared down it makes a tasty – yet interesting – bowl of rice.

The curry itself was time-consuming (aren’t they all?) but thankfully very, very tasty. In fact about the most ‘authentic’ (yes, of course I mean authentic to that you find in a takeaway) tikka masala recipe I’ve eaten. Creamy, nutty and boasting spice from within. The cauliflower was a tasty foil for the curry, with aromatic rice to back it up. (On a side note, both Jamie’s and Nigel’s recipe called for at least 1 chilli in each – we’re not so crazy about super-hot things in our house, so I’ve omitted them to let the spices speak for themselves. By all means chuck some in if they’re your thing).

A dead tasty nottakeaway.

Chicken tikka masala (serves 3):

For the brine:

1 litre water

2 tablespoons sea salt

5 tablespoons honey

2 cloves garlic, crushed

2 cardamom pods, cracked

3 cloves

2 chicken breasts, diced

For the tikka marinade:

6 cloves garlic, grated

3 inches fresh ginger, grated

1 tablespoon mustard seeds

1 tablespoon paprika

2 teaspoons ground cumin

2 teaspoons ground coriander

2 tablespoons garam masala

200g natural yoghurt

For the masala sauce:

2 onions, sliced

2 tablespoons garam masala

2 tablespoons tomato puree

2 tablespoons ground almonds

120ml double cream

Handful parsley, chopped

  1. Mix the brine ingredients together and soak the chicken in the water for at least 2 hours, anywhere up to 8 hours.
  2. Drain and rinse the chicken well. Discard the liquid.
  3. Heat the mustard seeds in a splash of oil until they start to pop (about 2 minutes). Remove the seeds from the pan and stir into the other ingredients. Coat the chicken with the yoghurt mix and leave to marinate for half an hour.
  4. In the same pan the mustard seeds were warmed in, add some butter and fry the onions gently with the garam masala. Leave to sweat and soften for 15 minutes.
  5. Meanwhile, grill the chicken pieces on both sides until cooked through.
  6. Back at the onions, ad the tomato puree, almonds, 1 litre water and a good sprinkle of salt. Allow to bubble and reduce until thick.
  7. Add the cream and check the seasoning. Add the chicken into the sauce and stir well to coat the meat and let the flavours mingle.
  8. Stir in the parsley and serve.

Gobi masala:

1 head of cauliflower, cut into small florets to cook evenly

1 tablespoon butter

1 tablespoon garam masala

200ml vegetable stock

  1. Heat the butter in a small saucepan until foaming. Add the spice and cook for a minute.
  2. Add the florets and toss well to coat in the spice butter. Cook for another minute.
  3. Add the stock and boil fairly fast until the cauliflower is knife-tender.
  4. Turn off the heat and put a lid on it for about ten minutes. The cauliflower will soak up some of the excess fluid.

Aromatic rice:

1 onion, diced

2 cloves garlic, peeled and bashed

1 cinnamon stick

3 cloves

4 cardamom pods

1 cupful rice per person

  1. Fry the onion gently until softened, then add the garlic.
  2. Add the spices and stir, allowing them to warm.
  3. Add the rice and a generous sprinkle of salt, stir will to coat the rice in the spiced oil. Top up the pan with three times the amount of water to rice. Bring to the boil, then reduce the heat to a simmer.
  4. Cover the pan and allow to simmer for ten minutes – do not lift the lid.
  5. Turn off the heat and leave for a further ten minutes, leaving the lid on.
  6. Stir through with a fork and grind over plenty of black pepper. If you have any left over from the curry, throw in some parsley too.

killer mac ‘n’ cheese

Posted by Gary in broccoli, cauliflower, cheese, food, garlic, pasta, roux and tagged with

killer mac 'n' cheese

Jamie Oliver’s title, not mine. Yes it’s another recreation from Jamie’s America. I have a macaroni cheese recipe I’m pretty happy with so it would be interesting to see what this brought to it. You start with a roux, add sliced garlic, whisk in milk, add cheese and then add boiled pasta and tomatoes. For some reason tomatoes weren’t on the menu tonight so I bunged in broc and cauli instead. Breadcrumbs on top, then in the oven for half an hour.

The key differences to mine were to add sliced garlic to the roux. This did lend an interesting smoky note to it which I enjoyed, but I didn’t feel adding both cheddar and parmesan did much for it. If I was going to improve on it, some pancetta would be nice and chewy. This is still a work in progress.