Tuesday 27 August 2013

Cauliflower and Chickpea Curry - A Random Recipe

An interesting challenge from Belleau Kitchen HQ this month. The illustrious cookbook we had to cook from had to be chosen on 'the hoof' so to speak. What cookbook would we grab if we had only ten seconds to pick one?

The instructions were to get a friend, house mate etc... to count to ten while the challenger sprinted to the cookbooks and grabbed one. Now I live alone so I had to do this one myself.

So I went outside... psyched myself up...nearly convinced myself the house was on fire....sprinted in....and grabbed my favourite bottle of whisky (next to the cookbooks) and legged it back outside in a blind panic.

After composing myself with a wee dram (any excuse). I tried again, this time without working myself up beforehand.

I was torn between two cookbooks to grab, the first one was Raymond Blanc's Kitchen Secrets, this is one of my favourite books because as well as the recipes, it give an explanation into why you are doing a certain stage or technique in a recipe and coming from a Food Science background and having to teach the stuff, this is my cup of tea.

However...

My sensible head kicked in and I grabbed one of my other favourites which is Our Hugh's River Cottage Veg Everyday with winning argument being - easier and healthier recipes.

Book sorted and after a quick random number generator I landed on Page 26 and this rather interesting curry from one of my favourite chef's; Angela Hartnett.
Normally, I'm not a fan of cauliflower and I would not normally pick this recipe to cook but cover anything in enough spice and I'll probably eat it (not squid, I hate squid) and to go with the rules of the challenge I had to give it ago.

The resulting curry was excellent, nicely spiced, fragrant and fresh with a nice kick from the chilli flakes. It was very easy to make, 40 minutes from beginning to eating so good for a mid week tea. another success from River Cottage Veg.

The recipe is available here on the Guardian website or on page 26 of the book which you really should own by now.


4 comments:

  1. This challenge did induce panic and made me crave a stiff drink too. Good choice of book, though, and a fine curry. I'm not that fond of cauliflower either but, for some reason, I love it in curries and soups.

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  2. Ahhh good old HFW!! I love this book. It's such a bible of a book too and I can see why you grabbed it (after the whisky of course) A great stew there too. Nice random recipes pick. Thanks do much for the entry x

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  3. Mmmmmm, I love squid. And your curry looks good too. I have been borrowing the book from the library from time to time. Really don't want to be finding space for new books until I have cooked more from the ones I have. Think it's a great book, though. Great I can find a lot of the recipes on Guardian online too.

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