Cauliflower Cabbage Curry

This is not what you typically think of curry like what you do for chicken. Since it’s a veggie recipe today, I did name it curry because I have included fresh curry leaves into it. Curry leaves have strong scent and it will influence the taste of a dish once you have added it. I haven’t seen or used curry leaves in my country because there was none available in the grocery or market. I just came to know about this wonderful herb when I came to live here in India.

Cauliflower cabbage curry recipe for vegetarians


If you’re vegetarian, you might as well like to try this recipe because it’s perfect and easy to prepare. Not unless you would like a non vegetarian meal, you can add fried fish into this lovely veggie curry and it will also be great. Since I am not familiar with most fishes here in India and I am really avoiding (honestly!) to eat fish because of its mercury content which will not be good for my pregnancy, I just opted to use fish broth cubes which I have taken with me here in India.

Anyway this meal consist of Indian spices but not chili or spicy to the tongue. You are the one to control the level of spice or chili content if you want more challenge to this dish. Here is the example list of ingredients needed for Cauliflower Cabbage Curry:

Cauliflower
Cabbage
Curry leaves (fresh, 5-6 pieces)
Onion (2 medium sized, chopped)
Green/Red chili- 2pcs.
Garlic- 2-3 cloves
Mustard seeds- 1 teaspoon
Turmeric powder- a pinch only
Coriander powder- 1 teaspoon
Chili powder- ½ teaspoon
Cumin powder- ½ teaspoon
Fish broth cube – 1
Salt-to taste
Ground black pepper- to taste
Vegetable oil
Water

Easy to prepare Cauliflower cabbage curry


Procedure on how to prepare/ cook Cauliflower cabbage curry:

Step 1: Heat the pan and put oil and once the oil is ready you can now put cumin powder and mustard seeds into it. Once the seed crackles, the next step would be sautéing your garlic.

Step 2: If the garlic is light brown in color you can now add the onions. Sauté it well until it becomes translucent and put turmeric powder and salt into it. After this, you may now add the green and red chili and your curry leaves.

Step 3: Next step is to put the coriander powder and stir well so it won’t stick at the bottom of the pan. After this you can now put the cauliflower. After 2 minutes, you can add 1 teacup of water and put the fish broth cubes. Wait for another minute before you put the cabbage strips and check the taste. If it needs more, then just sprinkle some salt and ground black pepper into it.

Step 4: Put the heat from medium to slow flame and do not overcook your veggies. If you have left over fried fish, you can include it in this dish and skip the fish broth cubes. I suggest that you use round scad (galunggong), fried milkfish or fried tilapia fish in this recipe. Hope to keep you posted for more recipes, Bon Appetit!

Pinakbet the Indian Style

Pinakbet is a famous dish from the north (Philippines). It consists of veggies like eggplant, lady finger, bitter gourd, string beans and squash. You can still add more veggies but the very basic is what I have mentioned above.


I just put the veggies so it is not yet cooked




I don’t know if you can call it blasphemy on my part for cooking Pinakbet with a bit of a twist since I added spice into it like chili flakes, turmeric and red chili powder. What can I do, I need to make my own rendition, yes that’s right, my own rendition of Pinakbet since we don’t have shrimp paste to use here so I improvised something like fish sauce (patis) and fish broth cubes which I bought back home before going back to India . They don’t have patis or fish sauce here and they don’t even include it in cooking their dish.

Steamy goodness of Pinakbet


Anyway, going back to my own rendition of Pinakbet Indian Style which I made it spicy (only thing that can be appreciated here), it does still taste fine. I did not regret to be bold enough to try it and taste. But if you were not into eating spicy foods, that’s fine, just ample enough of chili flakes will do I guess. But the original cooking of Pinakbet, shrimp paste should be use and with meat like pork or prawns if you like.


Just the right way to cook your Pinakbet veggies



The one I prepared was mainly a veggie meal, I did not include any meat products, and so if you are a vegetarian, you will like this dish. Here is how you prepare Pinakbet:

Ingredients:

Squash
Lady finger (okra)
Bitter gourd (ampalaya)
Eggplant
Fish sauce
Fish broth cubes
Onion
Garlic
Cooking oil
Water
Chili powder
Chili flakes
Turmeric powder
Ground black pepper
Ginger-garlic paste
salt

Methods / Preparation for Cooking Pinakbet:

Step 1: Wash the veggies thoroughly and cut them into right size (For eggplant: if it’s the round one, just criss-cross cutting it, for bitter gourd, not too thin and not too thick, for lady finger, cut it sided about two inches thick, for your squash cut it about an inch thick.

Step 2: On a pan heat the oil and sauté garlic and onions. Put some salt into your onion to cook it easily then sprinkle some pinch of turmeric powder into it. After this you need to put your chili powder, just enough for your taste before you put the veggies like squash, eggplant, bitter gourd and lady finger. Stir the veggies and put the fish broth cube and some fish sauce to taste.

Step 3: Add 2 cups of water for your veggies and then add the chili flakes into it. The water would be reflecting on the reddish color of your chili but would be getting something brown because of the eggplant. Just taste it and add some more salt and ground black pepper to your taste.

Step 4: Simmer the veggies for 5 minutes and check if it’s already tender. Do not overcook your veggies.

Your Pinakbet is best served with any fried fish or any dried fish but of course with hot steaming rice. Enjoy your meal!