Cauliflower and Chickpea Curry

This is one of my very simple recipes for those of you who enjoy an Indian style vegetarian curry. You can eat this as a veggie main with rice or as a side dish as part of an Indian meal. It also goes nicely with other vegetarian Indian food such as my paneer recipes. 😉

I recently watched the Great British Food Revival on the BBC, which is a programme attempting to remind us Brits about the delicious and fresh local produce growing all around us. Well-known chefs have teamed up to teach us new recipes using the great British produce.

One episode showed the Hairy Bikers cooking with cauliflower, and reminding us that this is a delicious, healthy, and cheap vegetable. Above all it is also an incredibly versatile vegetable. It is delicious when fried, roasted, pureed, and should certainly not be over boiled and served without seasoning! However as the hairy bikers said, the cauliflower has become somewhat unfashionable compared to its posher cousin, the purple sprouting brocolli and other similar vegetables.

I have always liked cauliflower and I think it is a beautiful vegetable. This is a recipe I created to accompany an Indian meal. I have made it a few times now and found that it is always successful and there are never any left-overs!

 

Cauliflower and Chickpea Curry

Start to finish time: 45 minutes
Serves: 4 (as a side)

Ingredients:

Half a cauliflower, washed and cut up small
2 tbsps sunflower/vegetable oil
1 onion, sliced
2 cloves garlic, sliced
1cm thick ginger, chopped small
120g tinned chickpeas, drained
2 tbsp tomato purée
handful fresh coriander, chopped

Spices:
1 tsp garam masala
1 tsp ground coriander
1/2 tsp chilli powder
1tsp cumin
1/2 tsp turmeric

Salt & pepper

1. Heat the oil in a pan. Add the sliced onions and soften on a medium heat for 5 minutes, stirring occasionally. Add the garlic and the ginger and continue to cook in the same way for 10 minutes. Add more oil if it gets too dry.

2. In a separate pan, heat all the spices for a minute. Then, add it to the onions and stir in.

3. You can now add the cauliflower, coriander and 1/4 cup water and put the lid on the pan. Cook for 10 minutes, stirring once or twice.

4. When the cauliflower has softened, add the chickpeas and the tomato puree. If the curry is looking dry, add a bit more water. (You don’t want it to be runny though as it isn’t a sauce.) Taste, and add salt and pepper accordingly.

5. Cook for 10 more minutes and then serve hot.

I ate mine with basmati rice and my homemade tandoori chicken! Delicious!

I hope you enjoy my recipe and as always I’d love to hear from you if any have tried it or any comments/advice/questions!

2 Paneer Recipes For The Price Of Yum!

Paneer is a totally vegetarian Indian white cheese. I would say it has a texture similar to halloumi, (but without the salty flavour) and is delicious in Indian cooking.

Although I am half Indian, I can’t remember eating much paneer at home. Strangely enough, I fell in love with paneer in Vietnam. When I was travelling around South East Asia with my boyfriend, we met an interesting guy in a guest house in Phnom Penh, Cambodia. We discussed books, the best hotels and places to eat. He had been living in Ho Chi Minh City and drew us a map on the back on a receipt. He recommended an Indian restaurant called Mumtaz on Bui Vien (road) and said we had to order the paneer tikka (grilled paneer). So of course, a week later, after we took the $10 bus crossing over from Phnom Penh to Ho Chi Minh City, Lewis and I went to try out this personally recommended restaurant. The food was absolutely delicious, especially the paneer tikka which was coated in spices, skewered and grilled.

Since then, I often choose the vegetarian option in Indian restaurants simply to eat paneer. I understand that the slightly rubbery texture is not for everyone, but if you haven’t tried it then here are two recipes for you to try. I can only hope that you like at least one of them!

You can buy paneer at most supermarkets (in the cheese aisle) and it is very easy to cook. Here are my two favourite ways.

Both my recipes are designed as side dishes. They are perfect served hot with rice, a chapatti and any curry or a lentil dahl.

Fried Paneer

Start to finish time: 15 minutes
Serves: 5

Ingredients:
250g cubed paneer
1 tbsp cumin seeds
1 tsp sunflower or vegetable oil

For the coating:
3 tbsps plain flour
1 tsp tumeric
1 tsp salt
1/2 tsp chilli powder
1/2 tsp cumin powder

1. Mix all the coating ingredients in a bowl. Add the cubed paneer and stir it up so that all the paneer is covered in the mix.

2. Heat the oil in a large non-stick frying pan and add the paneer. Fry on a high heat and keep tossing the paneer so that is doesn’t burn.

3. When the coating looks golden and crispy, move the paneer to a plate covered with a napkin and dry off any excess oil.

Yum no. 1, done!

Paneer with Spinach and Peas

Start to finish time: 40 minutes
Serves: 5

1 large onion, chopped
2 cloves garlic, finely chopped
250g paneer, cubed
5 blocks frozen spinach
75g frozen peas
1 tbsp sunflower/vegetable oil
1 tsp minced peeled fresh ginger
2 tbsp tomato puree
2 tbsp water
A handful of fresh coriander, chopped
salt & pepper

Spices:
1 tsp chilli powder
1 tsp paprika powder
1 tsp ground cumin
1/2 tsp tumeric
1/2 tsp ground coriander

1. Gently fry the onion, ginger and garlic in the oil until softened. Heat the spices in a separate pan and then add to the onion pan.

2. Add the frozen spinach and peas and stir through. When the spinach has started to cook, add the water, coriander and tomato puree. Stir through.

3. In a separate pan, dry fry the paneer until golden and then add to the main pot. Keep stirring on medium heat for about 10 minutes to allow the flavours to mingle. Add salt and pepper to taste.

You can also experiment with other vegetables, such as: cauliflower, tinned tomatoes, and cubed potato.

What is your favourite paneer recipe? Did you try my recipe? I’d love to hear from you.

A food blog is born

I love everything about food. I love cooking it, I love talking about it, and above all I love eating it! I’m obsessed with all things food; and that’s what my blog is about.

My name is Vered, and I’m a 24 year old female living in London. I’m an amateur cook and my love of food was heavily influenced by my parents. Food has always been a big thing in my family. I’m Jewish, (and you know we love to eat!) and Indian/Israeli from my mother’s side and Italian/English from my father’s side. I am the middle of three sisters, or ‘the best bit of the sandwich’ as my mother used to say. My parents cooked a homemade meal every night as we grew up, and we would eat together around the table without fail.

My mother’s cooking is mainly Indian and Israeli style food, a lot of vegetable curries and the best dahl in the world…and of course, chicken soup! My father’s cooking is more influenced by his Italian mother and his hippy days, when he and his friends would teach each other recipes from their travels around the world. He cooks delicious simple pasta sauces, but my favourite of all his dishes has to be his kleftiko! If I can steal some recipes I promise you can expect to see them on here at some point!

So, as you can imagine the food was always good in my house. Which is why I am obsessed with food and probably why my younger sister Danya-Zohar has turned her love for food into her career and is now entering her third year of her Bakery and Management BSc degree. She’s worked at Hummingbird bakery, had private cake orders and she’s won a trip this year to train in Bologna, Italy! You can read all about it in her food blog.

My taste in food is very mixed, but I think Indian and Italian are the best foods in the world! (Perhaps I’m biased!?) I love cooking for my boyfriend, friends and family. I also love being cooked for! I like to browse recipe books for inspiration, however I don’t follow recipes strictly and will often add my own twist!

I will always try to make the most authentic version of whatever I am cooking, and I don’t like bad imitations! However, I’m not prepared to pay through the roof for the freshest fish in the country and so I try to find the happy medium.

So what is Eat Now Talk Later about?

Well, I spend a huge amount of time cooking and experimenting with food.  I’ll be uploading my photos and recipes, and sharing my thoughts with you.

I also eat out at restaurants far too much, and I like to think of myself as a bit of a food critic. So I shall be giving you my two peas worth on local restaurants.

And, through stories and photographs, I may reminisce about some of my travels through South East Asia and holidays in Europe.

So here it is: My food diary! I hope you enjoy it. And if you do, please pass it on to someone else who might like it.

Please feel free to leave comments and let me know if there’s anything in particular you’d like a second helping of!

Bon Appetito! / Be Te’Avon!