Colorful Cauliflowers

You know how much I enjoy colors! Whether it is painting, tie dye, bollywood party, bangles, UTSAV (our art exhibit), shopping or experimenting with veggies, colors just attract me towards them.

Here are some glimpses of my encounter with colors!

And this was my pick from farmer's marker! :) So happy to buy these!!
Inspired by a friend of mine, Shimpa Rathore and her wonderful recipe, decided to cook the entire cauliflower instead of using only the florets.

I am in love with the purple one! Clicked many pictures :)

More color combination! Using colorful bell peppers!! 

Do you remember the color wheel?? Yellow and Purple!! ha ha :)

It is important to wash and clean the cauliflower specially for all those hidden veggie worms inside. Remove leaves from the bottom. Soak the cauliflower in salt water for some time and try bringing the florets apart for any dirt of debris to float out.

Using lemon and mint marinade for the purple one. As suggested by Shimpa, an acid based marinade will help the cauliflower retain its color. :) 

Mint from my herb garden! :) Shu takes care of it!!

Basic ingredients from my fridge for this marinade!

 Before marinating and baking the cauliflower, we need to slightly cook or blanch them.

Put the entire cauliflower in a Zip lock bag and microwave for 3 minutes.

See how the color changes on cooking!

Almost violetish :)

Here's the marinade: mint leaves, green chillies, garlic, ginger and lemon juice ground to form a paste.

Yellow bell pepper cut into strips.

Apply the minty marinate over the cauliflower. Push the marinate into crevasses and inside every floret. Place bell pepper below the cauliflower and let the marinate fall onto the bell pepper.

See how acid in the marinade brings back the purple color.

Let this cauliflower sit for 30 minutes.

Time for white and yellow cauliflower...making tandoori style.

Clean the cauliflower and soak them in salt water as we did to the purple one.

Preparing tandoori masala! Using almost all the spices from my spice box!

Pepper corn, cloves, cinnamon, cardamom, mace, red chillies,

Slightly roast them with few cumin seeds and dried fenugreek leaves (kasuri methi)

Grind the dry roasted masala.

In a large sieve pour 2 cup of yogurt. This is to let excess water from the yogurt to be removed to have a nice thick marinade. Let it rest for 30 minutes.

To thickened yogurt: add garlic and chilli paste. (I had this prepared earlier. You could use minced garlic and red chilli powder)

Add ground tandoori masala.

Add salt enough for the cauliflower.

Mix well and use this tandoori marinate over cauliflower.

Blanch or pre-cook cauliflower by putting it in a zip lock bag and microwaving it for 3-4 minutes.

Just cut some paneer cubes and red bell pepper to go with tandoori cauliflower.

On the bed of red bell pepper.

Go deep into the florets and apply the marinade

Marinating paneer cubes too!

Here is the yellow cauliflower. Making this one to Tandoori style :)

Again was and clean it well in salt water.

Blanch in microwave.

Marinate in yogurt tandoori marinade on the bed of green bell pepper.

All 3 cauliflowers marinated and read for the final bake.

Grease the baking rack. Place veggies and cauliflowers over the rack.

Bake them in a 350 F preheated over for 15-20 minutes. Broil for 5 minutes to get a wonderful tandoori color.

Cauliflower are ready. Nicely baked, bell peppers and onions cooked too.

While the cauliflowers were baking, I put the marinated paneer and bell pepper cubes to grill on my electric grill/panini press.

Serving tandoori paneer and lemon slices with tandoori cauliflower.

Love those grill marks!

Sprinkle tangy chaat masala over purple cauliflower marinated with mint and lemon marinade.

Here is a brilliant looking yellow cauliflower. The texture of this one was very different from the other too. Loved it with onions and bell pepper.

What a treat! It was a cauliflower dinner day!

Used my meat fork from my knife rack for the first time to carve the florets. :)

Served with tandoori roti!

I enjoyed making them and and I am sure you  would too!