Gobi Manchurian

Name: Gobi Manchurian
Prep time: 20 min
Cook time: 40 min
Total time: 1 h
Cuisine: Asian
Ingredients: 1 tbsp coconut oil; 3 cloves of garlic (roughly chopped); a small thumb-sized piece of ginger (peeled and roughly chopped); 2 red peppers (de-seeded and cut into 1cm pieces); 1 stick of lemongrass (finely chopped); 0.5 bunch spring onions (finely chopped); 1 green chilli; 1 tablespoon tomato purée; 2 tablespoons peanut butter; 1 tablespoon miso; 1 tablespoon soy sauce; 1 tablespoon vinegar; 1 large cauliflower (about 800 g) head broken into florets (leaves roughly shredded); 1 400 g tin chickpeas (drained); pinch of dried chilli flakes; 0.5 cucumber; 2 teaspoons toasted sesame oil; 1 teaspoon light soy sauce; 1 thumb-sized piece of ginger; 250g dry brown rice; handful of coriander leaves (chopped); 1 unwaxed lime (cut into wedges)

7 steps

Prep:20minCook:40min

Gobi Manchurian crosses the boundaries between Indian and Chinese cooking, to my mind the ideal cross-section of the Venn diagram. The traditional recipe is for deep-fried cauliflower in a sticky-sweet sauce, but my version has spiced roast cauliflower and a peanut and miso-rich sauce with freshness from chilli and lemongrass. Wildly untraditional I am sure, but I like it.

Updated at: Thu, 17 Aug 2023 05:35:01 GMT

Ingredients

4 servings

Instructions

Step 1

Preheat the oven to 180°C.

Step 2

First, make your sauce. Find a large baking tray (it needs to be big enough to fit the cauliflower and chickpeas on it) and add a splash of oil, then add the garlic, ginger, peppers, lemongrass, spring onions and whole green chilli and cook in the oven for 5-10 minutes, until the peppers have lost their rawness. Tip the lot into a bowl. Add the tomato purée, peanut butter, miso, soy, vinegar and 2 tablespoons of water, then blitz with a hand blender or in a food processor until a smooth sauce forms. Set aside.

Step 3

Increase the oven temperature to 220°C.

Step 4

Put the cauliflower florets and leaves on the baking tray. Make sure the chickpeas are well drained, transfer to a plate lined with kitchen paper if needed, then add to the cauliflower. Season with salt and drizzle with a little oil, then sprinkle over the chilli flakes and toss well. Roast in the hot oven for 25 minutes until the cauliflower is soft throughout and crisp on the outside and the chickpeas are starting to blister.

Step 5

Meanwhile, whack the cucumber a few times with a rolling pin (this breaks down the fibres), then slice thinly and toss in a bowl with the sesame oil and soy sauce. Grate the ginger onto a plate, then gather in your hands and squeeze out the ginger juice over the cucumber. Discard the ginger pulp and toss the cucumber to combine.

Step 6

Once the cauliflower-chickpea bake is ready, take it out of the oven. Pour the sauce into the bottom of a serving bowl and tumble the cauliflower-chickpeas on top. Taste and check the seasoning, adding a little more soy, chilli or vinegar if needed.

Step 7

Top with the cucumber salad and coriander, and serve with rice and lime wedges for squeezing over.