Cauliflower

I love cauliflower.

Anyone that knows me would not be surprised that the first food I decide to write about is cauliflower. I dream of my future husband and I having our meet cute at the grocery store (more on this later) and then after a couple of years of dating, he proposes with bouquet to have cauliflowers. It’ll be cute, I promise.

My introduction to cauliflower was a classic cauliflower poriyal my mom made. Poriyal or palya is essentially a dry cauliflower side dish with turmeric, mustard seeds, cumin and salt. I can’t remember when I first ate this but the memory of countless lunches of curd rice and cauliflower fill my mind. Now I’m hungry. I just ate a salad for lunch and it was pretty tasty but has not filled this deeper curd rice and poriyal hunger void.

Weekend lunches were sacred when I lived at home and Saturday was very different from Sunday. Sacred just means that we probably make eye contact and talk to each other instead of just TV time. The meal we ate on Saturday was time consuming world cuisine. Family favorites were enchiladas, lasagna and Chinese food. I must caveat this was indo Chinese food because the star of the meal for me was always Gobi Manchurian. Gobi is the Hindi word for cauliflower – the Belle of today’s ball. My mom deep fried cauliflower after it is coated in a simple flour and corn starch based batter. It’s not tempura level fancy and I don’t have a recipe. Once the cauliflower is deep fried, the goal became to keep them away from the kids that linger in the shadows, waiting to snack. While the cauliflower was being deep fried, I remember a sticky soy based sauce simmering on another stove. Every time she made it, it was slightly different but the consistent ingredients were soy sauce, tomato ketchup, scallions, corn starch. The tomato ketchup is key. It’s my favorite condiment and belongs on everything. Once the sauce reached the desired consistency – read sticky and sweet, the fried cauliflower was tossed in it and voila! Lunch is served. There was always a basic fried rice that was ready at exactly the same time but with the Gobi Manchurian around, I never focused much on the rice. My ideal appetizer to date at any Indian restaurant is always Gobi Manchurian. After moving to America, I have been exposed to “real” Chinese food. I love a good Chinese eggplant with black garlic sauce but Gobi Manchurian just hits different. I think I need to spend some time finding good Indian Chinese restaurants in New York / New Jersey. Any recommendations?

Sunday lunch was always traditional south Indian fare. There was typically a rasam and sambar or ‘kootan’ – all lentil based gravies essentially with different vegetables and spice mixes, one or two dry vegetables (Poriyal we just talked about) and plain white rice. My favorite version of this meal was rasam, rice, cauliflower and potato poriyal and finished off with curd rice and mango thoku (pickle). This meal is home.

A cauliflower less South Indian meal that is also missing my mother’s golden touch

I’m not a big leftover fan. I meal prep and eat the same dinner every week because I have to but if I had the time, I’d make something new every night. I have two favorite meals that – one is this specific full south Indian lunch and one is dosa with sambar and chutney – but even this I cannot eat interchangeably every day. Maybe I could eat dosa with varying accompaniments? Ok that’s probably right.

But the rice, I cannot. One head of cauliflower at the Whole Foods by me costs $3.49. Sometimes it’s on sale and costs $2.50 (+10% off for all Prime members!). I used to only buy cauliflower when it was on sale but now I buy it all the time (Treat Yo Self!). I bought it last weekend to meal prep and just roasted them with salt and pepper so you can really taste the vegetable. I also tried to make a red pepper sauce that I wanted to lay my cauliflower but that was an experiment gone wrong. I boiled cream. Rookie mistake.

I’m pumped to eat all this cauliflower for dinner and while I scarf down my dinner, I leave you with my favorite cauliflower foods I’ve made in the last few months.

Cauliflower Coconut Soup – inspired by https://www.jamieoliver.com/recipes/vegetable-recipes/roasted-cauliflower-and-coconut-soup/

Gobi paratha