Cauliflower cashew curry with coconut milk

Cauliflower is not a favourite in our household. So I have to keep cooking it in different ways so that at least it gets tried. While I love a cauliflower bake although everyone agrees it tastes good it's not eaten with much enthusiasm. After the usual turning up of noses this cauliflower curry was devoured and this is the 4th time I'm making it (which in this house says something!)

Garnished with coriander leaves and cashew

Preparation time: 1 hour; serves 4 - 6 (with other curries) 

Ingredients:

400 - 500 g	Fresh cauliflower florets
2 tbsp.	Oil
1/2 tsp.	Brown mustard seeds
1/4 tsp.	Turmeric
1 tsp.	Curry powder
1/4 tsp.	Chili powder (or to taste)
1/2 tsp.	Salt
500 ml	Thick coconut milk (read recipe for options)
65 g	Ground raw cashew nuts
	Rostzwiebel to garnish (for alternatives see below)

Method:

400 - 500 g of cauliflower florets is about one small head of cauliflower. Clean off the green parts and break the florets into bite sized pieces. We need our cauliflower florets to be rather small because we eat with our fingers and breaking cauliflower to pieces with your fingers is a bit cumbersome.

Prepare your spices and set them aside.

And then get your cashew ready. If you happen to have it you can use cashew butter. If you take this route make sure that there are no additives in the cashew butter, like sugar. Else prep your cashews in a mini-prep. Cashew gets very pasty so it may get stuck in the blades and heat your machine up. Thus pay attention to the heat of your machine. If you don't have a mini-prep, grinder or food processor you could try mixing the cashew with the coconut milk and then use a liquidizer or stick to process it. I have not tried this myself but I think that cashew are soft enough that any machine should be able to grind them (I may be wrong though so be careful).

Next prepare your coconut milk. This time I used 1.5 cups of warm water and mixed in 4 very heaped tablespoons of coconut milk powder, then made the liquid up to 2 cups (approx. 500 ml). Last time I used a whole can of coconut milk with water to make up the 2 cups. If you are in SL and use fresh coconut milk use the first thick milk (note that your curry will taste better than mine, be more healthy and have more oil!).

The cooking of this curry is very simple. Just heat the oil on medium-high heat until it sizzles when you drop in a mustard seed. Then add all your spices and stir them continuously so that they fry a bit. If you notice that they are burning remove the pot from the cooker very quickly. You don't want burnt spices. Once the spices start smelling or the mustard starts popping add the coconut milk and bring to the boil over medium-high heat. Just as it begins to boil add your cashew paste and then reduce the heat to medium. Blend in the cashew paste. I do this with the back of a wooden spoon and it takes some time. An alternative would be to put the cashew paste in with the coconut milk and mix them in a blender. Once the cashew paste is blended add in the cauliflower florets. Bring to the boil, cover the pot and allow to simmer for 15 minutes or until the cauliflower is tender. Keep in mind two things 1. you are going to eat this with your fingers so you should be able to break it with your fingers, 2. overcooked cauliflower tastes horrible. The couple of times I made this and knew I would be reheating it the next day for lunch I under cooked the cauliflower a bit so that when re-heated it still tasted okay and didn't turn into mush. I prefer a bit of a struggle on the first day to over cooked cauliflower on the second!

Finally, garnish your dish. I did this with Rostzwiebeln which is a German thing. Instead of Rostzwiebeln you could fry some onions until they caramelize and use this (note add this time on to the preparation time given above).  I've also used cilantro and roasted cashew.

Enjoy!!

Simple version for cooking can be found here

Sri Lankan Dahl. Red Lentils. A Staple.

My husband has been finding this blog very useful. A quick call from me to tell him that I'm stuck in the worst back up ever and am not going to make it in time to make dinner, sets the ball rolling. He checks the app we share to see whats on the menu, opens up this blog and cooks us dinner. Sometimes adding his own ingredients in to the mix.

Because of this I really had to get my act together so that he can cook one of our main staples - red lentils, dahl, parippu. What ever you may call it we can't have Sri Lankan food without it. It's marvellously healthy and terribly popular with the kids. It seems to be one of those universal foods kind of like fries and chips. We've never had a kid who does not like it, neither in the USA nor in Germany!

Serves 4; Preparation time 30 min.

Ingredients

1 cup	Red lentils, Mysore dahl
2 cups	Water (approx.)
1/2	Large red onion
1 sprig	Curry leaves
1/2 tsp.	Dill seeds
1 inch	Rampe (pandan)
1/4 tsp.	Turmeric
1/2 tsp.	Salt
1/2 tsp.	Chili powder
2 tsp.	Sri Lankan curry powder (unroasted)
3 tbsp.	Coconut milk powder
1 tsp.	Sri Lankan roasted curry powder
1 tbsp.	Lemon or lime juice

Method:

First of all I wash the lentils twice or thrice just like one washes rice. From there on there are several different options: temper first, temper in the middle etc. But I've been using a much simpler way for many years, cutting out the tempering and thus the oil!

I add water to cover the lentils (around 2 cups) and then put in all the ingredients except the coconut milk, the roasted curry powder and the lime juice. Then I simply put the lid on, put the cooker on high and let it boil. Putting the lid on is very, very important. It also helps to use a heavy bottomed saucepan.

Once the curry boils, I whip of the lid, give it a stir and put the lid back on again. The heat now is turned down to an amazing very low (2 on my cooker) and I allow the lentils to cook. I also check every now and then to see if there is always enough water in the pot. If there is not enough water the lentils will stick to the bottom of the pan and burn. Very yucky! Once most of the water is absorbed I add in the coconut milk, either from a can or powdered coconut milk powder. If I'm using the powdered sort (3 tablespoons) then I stir it in to the lentils and then add some water. This helps prevent any lumps forming. However, if this is the first time you are making this I suggest dissolving the coconut milk powder in 2 tablespoons of lukewarm water and then adding it. If using canned coconut milk the amount will depend totally on how thick the coconut milk is. The stuff I've been getting here in Germany is so thick that I add 2 heaped tablespoons in and some water (a few tablespoons). You can adjust the amount of water depending on how liquid you want your resulting curry to be. If you don't have coconut milk you can use regular full fat milk.

Then let the whole thing come to the boil and it should be done. If some of the lentils are not yet done, just give it a stir and let it cook for longer on very low (with the lid closed). You may need to add water to the curry to prevent it from burning.

Once everything is cooked remove from the heat add the roasted curry powder and the lime juice (you can use lemon juice instead) and cover until needed. Stir and then serve.

Garnished with coriander leaves and chilli flakes

This curry is totally forgiving. I've made it without onions, without curry leaves or rampe and it's still great. You can add tomatoes to it and/or garlic. If your a fish eater some Maldive fish tastes great too. Another favourite Sri Lankan variation is to add spinach to it (careful though, the spinach adds a lot of water to the curry). I've added coriander leaves to it and my cousin makes it with mustard seeds instead of dill. Everyone has their own variation. The one really important ingredient is the turmeric, without this it looks a bit weird. Having said that, my mother always makes it without turmeric and it tastes fine to me!

And finally, my little one loves it when I sprinkle fried onions on top. Try it out and add your own little twist to it. Tastes great with any kind of rice or with thick chunky bread. Kids love it in a sandwich too.

(Well not quite finally... you can also use any other lentil to make this curry, but from my experience it doesn't taste as good).