So…for my few readers who were actually wondering where the hell I disappeared, I am back! Last Sunday, I tried my hand at some exotic cooking. Ok…let me clarify. Anything that does not form a part of my mother’s recipe set is exotic for me. For the rest of the sane world, it is just normal Tandoori Gobi. It turned out quite well, taste-wise. But, it just did not look as good I would have liked it to. A couple of mistakes, a microwave oven that just wouldn’t grill my cauliflower well enough and some improvisations later, I ended up with perfectly edible, albeit not very good-looking Tandori Gobi.

The problem basically was that I used a glass dish to grill. My microwave oven is capable of baking and grilling too, but I am not a very good baker. So, I somehow never bothered to acquire the necessary utensils for baking. The result was that after a good 15 minutes of grilling, my cauliflower remained fresh as ever. Frustrated with the result, I transferred it bit by bit into a shallow frying pan and ended up frying it. It turned out burnt at places, but quite tasty. At the end of the evening, I learnt one valuable lesson. If something goes wrong with the process, you can always improvise and make it palatable and edible anyway.

So, here we go with the recipe I used. I have added ginger-garlic paste as an ingredient here. I did not use it for two reasons. One, my mother is not very fond of garlic. Two, if the cauliflower ends up not cooking properly, the raw smell of the garlic will make the dish inedible.

Ingredients

One medium-sized cauliflower
Thick curds (or hung curd) – 2 cups
Kashmiri chili powder – 2 tsps
Chaat Masala – 2 tsps
Garam Masala – 2 tsps
Turmeric – ½ tsp
Salt to taste
Ginger-garlic paste (optional)
Oil – 3 tbsps

Preparation time: 30-40 minutes

Cooking time: 25 minutes

Method

For the marinade

1. If you are using normal curds, hang it in a thin muslin cloth and let the water drain. This process takes a good two hours.
2. In a bowl, beat the curds well to ensure that there are no lumps.
3. Add the spices (chili powder, chaat masala, garam masala, turmeric and salt) and mix well. I used Kashmiri Chili powder because it is milder and gives a nice red shade to the dish. Watch the amount of salt added as chaat masala contains rock salt or black salt.
4. Keep aside.

Preparation

1. Cut the cauliflower into large florets and parboil with a bit of salt. Ensure that the cauliflower is still crunchy and not too soft.
2. Cool the parboiled cauliflower and stuff the marinade into the stems of the cauliflower.
3. Ensure that the marinade is fully coated around the cauliflower.
4. If you still have some masala left, pour it on the cauliflower and let it marinate for at least 3 hours.
5. Once it marinates, heat some oil in a shallow frying pan, transfer the cauliflower to the pan bit by bit and fry on high flame. Make sure you keep turning the florets regularly so that they do not burn.
6. Serve with chapathis or kulchas. Alternatively, it can be served as a starter with pudina chutney.

The tandoori gobi does not go very well with rice. I found I liked it much better with phulkas the following day.

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