How my experiments with cauliflower rice went down
Afriend living in the US occasionally puts up a photo of her dinner platter, on Facebook, with the caption, “Home-cooked ____ and _____… so, what are YOU cooking tonight?” I try and look up her dinner posts whenever I can since they provide a fillip for home cooking, and help me remain motivated in the kitchen. A couple of weeks ago, she posted a picture that looked tempting enough: nicely browned chicken legs set in a bed of rice (or so I thought), along with (serious) leafy greens.
This was her caption: “Chicken and cauliflower rice, with a side of sautéed spinach — and, guys, we’re trying out cauliflower rice for the first time tonight!”
Cauliflower rice? Did I read right?
Yes, turned out I did, because in the comments section, she added that the ‘cauliflower rice’ did not go down too well with her teenaged son (apparently, he found it too bland).
“What is cauliflower rice?” I asked her promptly, in the same thread.
“That whitish rice-like mass you see in my photo? That’s not rice — it’s blitzed cauliflower cooked lightly,” she replied.
Reportedly, the term ‘cauliflower rice’ has gained traction because blitzed/grated cauliflower resembles cooked rice (try juxtaposing a photo of a bowl of cooked rice next to a bowl of cauliflower rice and you’ll know what I mean). Consequently, you can treat it like the rice component in a meal, sans the carbs.
“What’s more,” my FB friend was on a roll, “It doesn’t just do away with carbs — it replaces them with vitamins (C and K in particular) and minerals! Basically, cauliflower rice is great for health, and great for losing weight.”
She got me there. A quick Google search revealed that while regular brown rice added approximately 220 calories per 100 gm to your system, cauliflower rice contributed just 25 calories per 100 gm. Then, consider the following credentials.
Fights inflammation
Helps reduce cancer risk Decreases risk for heart disease and brain disorders
Improves digestion and detoxification Helps balance hormones
Preserves eye health
Tell me, is there any reason why one shouldn’t be having only cauliflower rice?
Before I could proceed to the next Google stop of ‘How to make cauliflower rice?’, my friend kindly sent me the link to a BBC Good Food article on three different ways to rustle it up: microwaving, stir frying and oven roasting. “How did you make it?” I wanted to know. “Oh, I nuked it,” she said, making me scurry online to find out what “nuked” meant in context of culinary sciences (it’s microwaving, in case you were wondering).
I decided to try out the oven roasting option: my neglected oven, which I use once in a blue moon to reheat pizza, would be thrilled; plus, the BBC piece said that the oven-roasted version tasted the best.
Last weekend saw me buying a whole cauliflower (probably for the first time in my life because the counter woman — who’s well-acquainted with my frugal veggie shopping habits — gave me a disbelieving look), cutting it into small pieces, putting it into the blender, giving up in despair — a blender is not meant to blitz florets; you need a mixer-grinder, I don’t have one… However, my manual grater fetched up to render some effective service.
Soon, I was standing over a pile of finely grated cauliflower — and, man, it could pass off as small-grained rice so easily!
Cooking the “rice” was a 10-minute-long process, and called for side companions of a drizzle of olive oil and a sprinkle of sea salt… and a baking dish. When I tasted my first rendition of cauliflower rice, I thought it tasted like a mix of couscous, (actual) rice and a touch of cauliflower. Not bad, not bad at all for a vegetable to taste so… well, “grain-like”. When I ate it smeared with some (home-cooked) daal,
I thought it did a very decent job of being a rice substitute: it was easy to assume I was in daal-chawal heaven.
Now that I had a fix on the world’s latest health food, I started thinking creatively. Cauliflower rice would be a great base for poha — the Indian breakfast staple that uses flattened rice. I imagined sautéing it in a bit of oil (olive preferably, or maybe flaxseed oil — into which I’ve just been initiated and have to say it boasts of an amazing taste DNA, other than being hopelessly good for the body), adding cumin and mustard seeds, grated ginger, curry leaves and a hint of green chillies. I’m sure poha can be converted into a superfood thanks to cauliflower rice. I went back to my friend’s thread, and expressed my newly-acquired foodie thoughts, besides pontificating it may convert her son into a cauliflower fan too.
My friend, who’s very difficult to please otherwise (at least on social media), “hearted” my comment, and said, “Wow, that’s a cool thought! Will try next weekend.”
I’m now waiting for her post on cauliflower rice poha.
My first rendition of cauliflower rice tasted like a mix of couscous, (actual) rice and a touch of cauliflower. Not bad, not bad at all for a vegetable to taste so… well, “grain-like”