Watching Masterchef was
not a good idea because now I am craving chocolate trifle like something crazy. Also because it's cold, my body has just decided that it is flinging all self control out the window and is craving anything warm and fatty - which I think is what it's supposed to do as a survival mechanism. But luckily today, I tried my hand at a new recipe - cauliflower fried rice.
I kid you not - that massive bowl has no more than 250 calories at the most (and most of it came from the scrambled egg). But how on earth did you manage that (I hear you say in an astonished voice). Because it has absolutely no rice - it just has cauliflower that has been attacked by the grater. I was pretty skeptical at first because I was like, whatever... cauliflower + grater does not = rice. But I shit you not - it was pretty much as good as a bowl of actual fried rice, which was perfect on a cold evening like tonight. M. agreed that it was pretty awesome too, so there - two endorsements for this smashing recipe.
I give you: Cauliflower fried rice.
Ingredients (serves one)
- half a head of cauliflower (you could probably even use a third of a head, but I was like hey, I'm cold and I want to feel full)
- half a carrot
- handful of green beans
- one egg
- two mushrooms
- half an onion
- one teaspoon of minced garlic
- half a can of sweet corn kernels
- soy sauce
- salt
- a wee bit of coriander
1. Cut up the carrots, green beans, mushrooms and onion (p.s. if you want to be a bit lazy, you could probably achieve exactly the same results using frozen mixed vegetables, but hey - I wanted to use fresh ingredients. Also, there isn't enough room in our flat's freezer to toss a bag of frozen vegetables in there).
2. Cut cauliflower into florets and grate (I used the larger hole). Just a warning - it will be quite messy. Otherwise you can use a food processor, but I'm a student and I don't have one lying around in the flat.
3. Scramble the egg and fry into a flat omelette shape. Remove from pan and cut into squares.
4. Add a dash of olive oil and add onion and garlic to frying pan.
5. When onions have become translucent, add the carrots. You have to stir for a bit because carrots take a while to cook and you don't want to bite into undercooked crunchy carrot bits because you don't get that shit normally when you get fried rice (if you want to be doubly sure that this doesn't happen, you could probably pre-boil the carrot bits).
6. Add green beans and cook for a bit before adding the mushroom. At this point, add some soy sauce and salt, to taste
7. Add corn kernels and stir the mixture for a bit. Remove from pan and set aside.
8. Add grated cauliflower to the frying pan. I added a wee bit of olive oil and then stirred the cauliflower around until it was juuuust cooked.
9. Add your vegetable mix and scrambled egg pieces to the pan and mix together. Add more soy sauce and salt to taste.
10. When you're about done, add the coriander and serve.
I was pretty pleased with myself. The best part is the fact that I can jazz it up and change the recipe a bit to get different sorts of rice, like Moroccan or Mexican, depending on what additional vegetables/condiments I add to the cauliflower rice base. I don't know about you, but I don't think I'm going to get sick of this for some time. Looking forward to dinner already tomorrow!
