Cauliflower rogan josh

Serves

4 People

Cooking Time

60 minutes

Season

Autumn

Winter

Dietary

Vegetarian

This is a fantastic vegetarian curry using the base of a classic rogan josh; dark, slightly smoky spices and tomatoes finished with some yoghurt, which goes perfectly with Cauliflower. This is a super easy winter warmer to have up your sleeve. You don’t have to stick to Cauliflower either, any winter veg will work like squash and parsnips, you can even add chickpeas or paneer too, to bulk it out if you wish. Making your own spice mix goes along way to improve the flavour in this dish, but if you won’t have the spices you can use a ready made Garam Masala instead.

Ingredients

For the spice mix.

1 tbsp Cumin Seeds
1 tbsp Coriander seeds
2 Black Cardamom pods
Half tbsp Black peppercorns
5 Cloves

To be added later

1 tsp Smoked Paprika
½ tsp Chili powder
1 Cinnamon stick
Cumin Seeds

1 Onion
5 Cloves garlic
1 thumb sized piece of Ginger
3 Tomatoes
5 tbsp Tomato Puree
300ml water
Oil
1 Cauliflower
Salt

To finish

5 tbsp Yoghurt
Chopped Coriander
Half Lemon

Method

Step 1.

Make your spice mix, in a small pan heat the whole spices until they begin to just brown and start to pop. Using a spice grinder or pestle and mortar grind these until fine.

Step 2.

Using a blender, blitz together the onion, garlic, ginger, tomatoes and tomato puree. Blend until smooth. If you don’t have a blender you can finely grate the onion, garlic and ginger and dice the tomatoes.

Step 3.

Heat some oil in a large pan. Add a tsp of cumin seeds and the cinnamon stick and fry gently for a minute. Add the paste along with your ground spices, plus the chilli powder and smoked paprika. Add a good pinch of salt to the paste and fry gently for around 5 mins. Add the water and allow to simmer.

Step 4.

Prepare your cauliflower, cutting into florets and finely chopping the stem. Don’t waste the stem! Keep the cauliflower chunky so it won’t over cook too quickly. Add this to the sauce.

Step 5.

Simmer for around 30-40 mins until, the sauce has thickened slightly and the cauliflower is cooked. Take off the heat and add the yoghurt and lemon juice. Taste for seasoning adding more salt if needs be. Serve with finely chopped coriander on top and alongside some steamed basmati rice.