Category: cauliflower

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cauliflower chicken curry food

chicken tikka gobi

Quite often, when you get a new kitchen gadget, you play with it for a bit, then goes in a box never to be seen again. I’m sure many of us have consigned bread makers, ice cream machines and rice cookers to garages and lofts.

But this hasn’t happened with my Actifry. At least once I week I plonk it on the counter to rustle up some potatoey goodies, whether it’s chips, wedges or similar. I’ve been trying to branch out with it inspired by the accompanying mini recipe book that implies it can practically do anything. There’s a proper community out there for Actifry recipes – check out this Pinterest board for example. A curry seemed like an interesting place to go with it. So I went for a chicken tikka gobi, a tomatoey chicken and cauliflower curry.

I load up the ingredients for the first few minutes and let it do it’s thing. Because it churns and turns you don’t have to stir it, you can just leave it to get on with it.

The results were great. Really comforting midweek stuff. It tasted like a casserole-style curry that you’d make yourself at home in a similar timeframe, but just leaving it alone while you Netflix another episode of Fringe is very convenient. This isn’t the last Actifry experiment I’ll be trying, that’s for sure.

As part of the recipe, I used a jar of tikka paste that I had knocking about. It’s a Sainsbury’s one. I idly looked at the back of the jar at the recipe and had to do a double-take. I was surprised to see the old “seal the meat” line stinking up the place. I’d assumed that myth had been long since buried.

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chicken tikka gobi

Prep Time 5 minutes
Cook Time 40 minutes
Total Time 45 minutes
Author Gary @ BigSpud

Ingredients

  • 1 tablespoon tikka paste heaped
  • 1 tablespoon yoghurt heaped
  • 1/2 lemon
  • 2 chicken breasts diced
  • 1 teaspoon cumin seeds
  • 1 onion diced
  • 1 head cauliflower chopped quite small
  • 1 tin tomatoes

Instructions

  • Mix the paste, yoghurt, lemon and chicken together in a bowl and refrigerate for a couple of hours or overnight if you have the time.
  • Turn the Actifry on, add a spoon of oil and the seeds and leave it for a couple of minutes to heat up.
  • Add the onion and cauliflower and give them 5 minutes to cook. After 5 minutes add the chicken.
  • After another 10 minutes cooking add the tomatoes and half a tin of water and a pinch of salt.
  • Leave to cook for another 20 minutes, or until the chicken is cooked through. Do check for seasoning and whether it needs a little more salt or lemon juice. Serve with rice, naan or flour tortillas.
Categories
breadcrumbs cauliflower cheese macaroni pancetta pasta

cauliflower macaroni cheese

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.
Categories
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.
Categories
cauliflower curry lentils

quick cauliflower dhal

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.
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