Saturday, September 11, 2010

Spanish Cauliflower "Rice"

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On my list of things to try has been cauliflower "rice." It's been on my list for a while. I do like cooked cauliflower, and rarely ate rice when I did eat rice.

I have made an amazing discovery: cauliflower "rice" is more amazing than rice rice.

I kid you not.



Spanish Cauliflower "Rice" is incredible!

In the words of my husband, "I like it even better than real rice." It's more flavorful, more betterer for you, and easy! Instead of cooking rice at the beginning (or happening to have leftover rice) you merely grate up a head of cauliflower.

For this recipe, I chopped up farmer's market onion and garlic and sauteed them. I used clarified bacon grease although any frying oil would work.

Once the onions started to clear I added approximately two large tomatoes worth of chopped tomato left from the bruisers of our tomato sauce project (a post on that once I get good pictures) and left them to simmahdown.

I then grated the cauliflower and chopped up a farmers market green/red bell pepper.

To the pan I added cumin, coriander, basil, oregano, cayenne, and a teeny bit of turmeric.

As cauliflower does not absorb as much liquid as rice, I waited for the tomato to cook mostly to a sauce before adding in the grated cauliflower. I'm not much of one for mushy peppers so I added the chopped peppers near the end.

This is sure to return soon to our dinner rotation and I can't wait to try asian-inspired fried cauliflower "rice"!

3 comments:

  1. Sounds intriguing! I will have to try that!

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  2. Do you taste much of the cauliflower? Would Bill, who doesn't like cauliflower eat it? (If you did have a little brother, would he like cheese?)

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  3. It doesn't really taste much like anything but what you add to it.

    Instead of being fibrous and almost a dull taste like plain rice, it does have a tiny bit of firmness to the "grains" (I hesitate to say "crunch") and a hint of sweetness. But it still mostly just takes on the flavors you add to it.

    It doesn't absorb water the way rice does so you can't just cook it in chicken broth, think of it more as using leftover rice, that you have to add less liquid and more concentrated flavor.

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