There was a cauliflower in last week’s box, and it is certainly a vegetable that provokes a mixture of reactions. I have had to “work” at liking cauliflower myself and have already shared my recipe for Roast Cauliflower.
Out on my delivery round yesterday I got chatting to a customer who had a very interesting suggestion. She is on a Paleo diet and therefore avoids carbohydrates to a large extent. She said that she serves cauliflower as “rice” by grating the florets and frying them. This sounded like such a good idea I had to try it and so I served up “Cauliflower Rice” to my family last night alongside a spicy, coconutty red lentil dahl – good responses I am happy to say! It served three of us
Ingredients
1 medium-sized cauliflower
1 small onion
Bunch of fresh parsley, finely chopped
1 tsp Yellow mustard seed
1 tsp whole cumin seed
1 tbsp oil
few drops of lemon juice
salt and ground black pepper
Instructions
Method:
Prepare the cauliflower first by trimming off the leaves, washing then breaking into florets. Take each floret and grate on the coarse side of your grater. (I had best results by grating the stem first, working outwards through the floret so that the final crumbly florets don’t get too mangled. I don’t think you could use a food processor for this as I think it would mash the cauliflower too finely. A whole cauliflower looks a lot when it’s grated but actually it cooks down quite a bit and is quite light in texture so don’t be afraid to do the whole thing.)
Finely chop the onion
Heat your wok or large frying pan and add the mustard and cumin seeds to toast dry for a few moments.
Add the oil and as the seeds start popping add the onion and stir-fry for a few minutes.
Add the grated cauliflower and stir-fry for about ten minutes until the cauliflower “grains” are cooked but still have a little bite.
Add the fresh parsley and stir into the cauliflower.
Season with salt and ground black pepper to taste adding a squeeze of lemon juice.
Serve up with a saucy dish like this…
The taste tests are in - so far: 6 people thought Cauliflower ‘Rice’ was Yummy 1 thought Yuck. What about you - Yum or Yuck?!