Sophia Makes Curry Cauliflower Rice

So I'm gonna get our little--

[lights flickering]

Oh, is that?

That's a little situation.

Our light is a little bit possessed,

but we rocking and rolling anyway.

And take one.

[cheerful music]

Hold on this thing needs a little oil to be honest.

Okay, we ready?

[clapping]

Hi everybody, I'm Sophia Roe.

And today we're gonna make my recipe

from the December issue of Bon Appétit.

It is a curried cauliflower rice.

I came up with this recipe

because my partner is pre-diabetic,

and he can't have any grains.

Also a lot of requests from friends, families,

people on the internet for our cauliflower rice recipes.

But here's, all that aside, blah, blah, blah.

Best thing about this, so accessible.

All you need is literally a cauliflower.

Isn't this amazing?

Just one cauliflower.

I guess regular rice is only one ingredient too, but okay,

but hear me out, hear me out, hear me out.

This is really, really simple.

So today we're working with some curry powder,

some turmeric,

we're giving this a lot of good aromatic stuff

because it can take it, it can handle it.

All right, so first thing,

you can do this with any color cauliflower.

Today we're using white, but if you wanna use purple,

if you wanna use red cauliflower,

there's a million different kinds of cauliflower out there.

Whatever you find works perfect.

You do wanna make sure that you cut off the leaves.

You can save these for some stock.

You definitely don't have to throw them out,

you can absolutely save them.

I like to just cut, just cut right through the center.

[cutting cauliflower]

Here's the deal.

Normally you see a situation where this is cut out.

And we just take this whole thing out.

Honestly we're gonna eat it.

'Cause it's perfectly good to eat.

We're just gonna cut off the kinda like yucky stuff

at the bottom, that's the only thing

we definitely don't want that.

But otherwise we're good,

this is a really great food waste situation too.

We've got a cauliflower that's like, seen better days.

This is just not as gorgeous as it was, make rice out of it.

So we're gonna cut this, we're gonna get pretty small.

Now I sometimes prefer the cheese grater method.

Imagine in your mind for me,

a box grater, think a box grater.

Literally, take the cauliflower, just imagine it,

and just right up and down the box grater.

It's gonna make a mess,

but your pieces will be nice and uniform.

The smaller you get this at the beginning of the process,

the better.

That just means your cauliflower is gonna be that much

more uniform, and that much more riced.

Riced?

Yeah, I guess that's the word, right?

Okay, so we're gonna get in here to our food processor.

Into the food processor.

[dumping in cauliflower]

And if you make a mess, good,

that means you're doing it correctly.

We're gonna go in and we're gonna pulse.

Am I gonna?

Hold on, wait, how does this go again?

Wait, wait, sorry.

[snapping on lid]

There we go.

[food processor running]

And if you start to see, the outsides are really nice

but the inside's still a little big,

just go in there and kinda just rearrange

the situation station.

It's all good.

[tapping bowl]

I like to pulse in batches.

The reason, the more full this is

the more you're likely to have some inconsistencies.

Because the more is in there,

the more you're gonna, there's just more room for issues.

We don't want any issues, you know?

We got enough of those.

[food processor running]

Look at that.

[food processor running]

Look at that.

Now what we have here, we got ourselves a little dish towel.

If you wanna use paper towel, go ahead,

I'm not gonna stop you.

So this is gonna catch any extra, wait, hold on, sorry.

This is gonna catch any extra moisture because cauliflower,

sometimes she comes with a little extra moisture.

And we love moisture but when we're doing sauteed,

anything sauteed, we want our situation as dry as possible.

Now, if we go through this and we see any big chunks,

see that?

This is another reason why you wanna do this in batches.

This guy just didn't make the first cut,

but that's all right we're gonna put him back in.

[dumping in cauliflower]

Wait, is it this way?

I think it's this way, sorry, oh my gosh.

[food processor running]

Woo.

[food processor running]

You're so nice, and fluffy, and gorgeous.

If you wanted to.

Am I?

Is this?

Okay.

You can just freeze for up to six months.

Six months, that means you can take this,

we're gonna press it.

'Cause you just wanna get all the extra moisture out of it.

It's not going to hurt us,

but it's just not our favorite thing.

You know what I'm saying?

Once we've pressed the liquid out,

this is when we put it in a Ziploc bag,

put in a refrigerator for three days,

or we put it in a freezer safe container,

and put it in our freezer for up to six months.

Okay, so let me show you the fluff.

Look at this fluffiness.

Do you see this?

Look at that, it's perfect, it's perfect.

Now, like I said, save for later, use it now,

freeze it, it's your business.

Look at her, in all her woo.

Right, she's fabulous.

We're gonna get into our ingredients.

We've got coconut milk, lime, a little coconut sugar,

'cause a little sweetness, that's how it goes,

a little balance, a little acid, a little sweetness.

We've got curry powder, coriander.

My favorite thing in the universe, maybe besides cardamom.

I dunno, I love coriander.

Anyway, we also got some turmeric, shallot, garlic

red pepper, we've got some pepitas

we're gonna actually toast those.

And some golden raisins.

These are our players, let's party.

So first thing we're gonna do,

while we do our choppy choppy,

we're actually gonna toast these pepitas.

Why are we gonna toast them?

Because everything's better toasted.

When you're toasting any nut or seed,

no oil in the pan, dry.

Straight there.

So we're just gonna lay these flat, super low,

watch them because nuts and seeds will burn quickly.

You wanna keep that flame super low.

In the meantime, we're gonna choppy choppy.

We are gonna take our red pepper

and we are in no way, shape, or form

gonna make this look perfect because

that's just not my style.

It's just not, I don't do the perfect stuff.

Ooh, we got a little,

this is strange weather here in New York.

So we're just gonna get in here and filet our pepper.

Now these little pedals, these are for me to eat.

Mm.

Let's take a look.

[shaking pan back and forth]

[moving pepitas around]

[shaking pan back and forth]

So that's doin' it's thing,

we're gonna come in and do our shallot.

You know what else is good here?

Green onion, mm.

Okay, here we go, look at this.

You see how the pepitas kind of puff up a little bit

and they get gorgeous and golden brown?

You kinda hear 'em poppin', do you hear 'em poppin?

You hear that?

[pepitas popping]

That's how you know they're ready.

But look how, aren't we?

Aren't they?

I mean, they're so cute.

We love 'em.

Okay so, we're gonna get in to the curry situation station.

So we're gonna go in medium heat,

we're gonna go in olive oil.

I dunno how much, what is it, like two tablespoons?

Or excuse me.

Yeah, yeah.

And we're gonna go in first thing with the shallot,

right in.

[dumping shallot]

Yum, do you hear it?

Do you hear the sizzle?

Red pepper in, mm.

My snacks, mm.

You notice I do garlic last, why?

Everybody in the world has told you, what burns really fast?

Oh, garlic.

It loves to burn.

We're just gonna microplane this garlic in.

I mean, a microplane might be my favorite kitchen tool.

Gosh, look at that.

See that?

Over.

We didn't have to stress ourselves,

or our cutting boards out with garlicky fingers.

No offense, I love a garlicky finger,

but you know what I'm sayin'.

I do however think that you should have a cutting board

that is only for onions and garlic.

I know you're thinking, Soph, really?

Really, you really should.

Okay, because there's nothing worse than chopping

into a gorgeous apple and then taking a bite of it,

and it tastes like garlic.

It's happened to you, I know it has

and I'm sorry, I'm sorry that you did that to yourself.

Beautiful.

Delicious, little salt as we go because that's how it goes.

A little salt train.

Now we're gonna get in with our spices.

Okay, so we're goin' in with the curry powder.

We're goin' in with coriander.

Oh, the smell insane, so good.

Oh my God, so good.

So we're gonna have some turmeric in here.

Now in terms of a curry, that's your preference, baby.

Whatever you like, you like red?

Go red.

You like yellow?

Go yellow.

Whatever you want.

We're gonna let this do its thing here.

You want it to look almost like it's gettin' a little dry.

That's good, that's a good thing.

Now I am goin' in here with coconut milk.

Coconut milk is truly a gift from God.

But whatever you want, okay, whatever you want.

I love the coconut milk.

So you don't want this to come to a rolling boil,

we really want it to be just like a low simmer.

We're gonna add coconut sugar because sweetness, balance.

We're also gonna add the lime.

We're gonna do juice and the zest.

Here's the deal on measurement's, not my favorite.

In fact, a lot of chefs will tell you

that they cannot stand having to sit and write

a physical recipe because it's just really not how we cook.

It's a lot more intuitive.

So taste as you go.

I love a half a lime squeeze,

you might like a whole lime squeeze,

but in the issue you'll see the exact measurements I use.

But I always like to air on like,

adjust your seasoning for taste.

We're also gonna top this with some herbs,

some mint, some cilantro.

So we're gonna get the lime in there.

So what I like to do if I'm having a hard time with citrus,

the whole like Ina Garten teaches you you've gotta roll

the lime to get the juice out.

No, here, go in with a fork.

See that?

So easy.

And it's just gonna get all the juice out.

We're going in with the cauliflower rice.

Are you ready?

Are you ready?

I'm kinda nervous.

Like I, ooh, oh my God.

We're not gonna use all of this.

You know what?

Yes we are, I just decided that we are.

So we're goin' in, look at our cauliflower mound.

Like hooh, look at that mound.

This is definitely a space

where you wanna use full fat coconut milk.

It just really helps with the thick texture.

I like how kinda thick this is,

you see how thick this moment is?

This is where we're gonna actually turn up

the temperature a little bit,

because you do wanna make sure

that you're actually cooking the cauliflower.

Because remember your cauliflower is not cooked yet.

And we're also gonna add some golden raisins

for a little sweet, a little sweet situation.

And when it kinda starts to look like tofu scramble,

you know what I'm talking about?

When it starts to look like that texture,

that's when you know you're on your way.

We're also gonna go and season.

[sizzling]

Now at this point you taste,

if you wanna add a little bit more sweet stuff,

add a little more sweet stuff.

Mm, mm.

I think it needs more salt,

so I'm gonna add more salt.

Here's the thing about cauliflower,

it requires some seasoning.

Yum, look at this color, stunner.

You really want it to soften.

Cauliflower rice you can just leave for a while.

This is another reason why this is so accessible.

Nothing's gonna happen to this.

Keep it on medium heat

and let it kinda do its thing for five minutes.

Just do its thing.

So I've got some herbs here.

We've got some cilantro, my fave.

We're gonna go in, we're gonna chop.

Now, we don't want big old things like this in there.

A little stem, something like this,

this little guy, that's fine, that's fine.

This is a very yellow moment

which we don't hate, which we love.

But I think it's nice when there's bits of green mixed in.

The mint, I'm gonna save for the top.

Here's the thing about mint, mint and heat, ugh.

The mint sometimes gets a little muddy,

gets a little brown, which isn't my favorite.

Beautiful.

So when you start to see that your cauliflower

is kinda like,

it's gettin' a little stuck there to the bottom,

that's how you know it's ready, that's it's literally it,

that's the key.

Okay, onto the platter, we're gonna decorate this platter.

This is so versatile.

We're using pepitas because that's what I like.

Time to sprinkle, look at the sprinkling.

Are you seeing the sprinkling?

Are you seeing that?

A little bit of season.

Now we're gonna go in with some mint.

I just like to just kinda leaf by leaf cut mint.

And when we're cutting it,

we really don't want these stems in there,

'cause those don't taste good.

But we just like to make sure that our cuts are hard

because we do not want to muddle up the mint.

Because it literally doesn't taste good.

So do you see how we've got like nice chunks here?

This is exactly what we want for our mint.

So we're gonna drizzle with some mint right on top.

So now we're gonna go in with a little bit more cilantro.

Check her out, look at what we made.

I dunno, I was thinking when I was writing this,

I'm like this is too simple, this is too easy.

But that's kinda like this light.

Like, it's just what you want sometimes, a party,

simple, sudden.

The light so suddenly is like this.

[eating]

[Man] Oh God, okay.

[people laughing]

So, what this needs here,

is a little bit of a lime squeeze.

That's what it's hidden for, yummy.

But there we have it.

Curry cauliflower rice.

Yummy.

[lights flickering]

Yummy.

[Man] Nailed it.

[Sophia laughing]

Okay, so we've got our beautiful family style platter.

I'm gonna make myself a little portion here

with little yogurt on top.

[tapping bowl]

We're gonna get some mint on top.

The mint mixed with the yogurt, ooh.

Are you kidding?

Lovers.

Mint and yogurt, they're lovers, they love each other.

And when you eat this the way I need you to do it,

promise me you'll do it this way, promise me.

Is that you'll come in with a spoon

and you'll mix that yogurt in with the whole situation,

with the mint.

And then you'll get the bite with the cauliflower,

and the mint, and the yogurt, and the red pepper,

and it's just gonna be so good.

Can I take a bite?

Mm,

mm.

[classical music]

Oh my gosh.

Check out the full recipe in the magazine.

Please do it.

I promise you're gonna love it.

This is the curry that you throw together

in 15 minutes for your family.

You know what I'm saying?

No grains, hit it with some beans,

hit it with any protein, whatever protein you like.

It's up to you.

That's it, I don't know.

I'm gonna, I mean, I dunno, that's it.

See you later.

Bye.

[people laughing]