Cauliflower and sweet potato curry

Who’d have thought that a hospital meal could inspire my dinner last night.

My friend Nicky was not very well recently, and spent a week in a rather depressing south London hospital. Inevitably, the food was dire, which didn’t help one iota in getting her appetite back – until her doctor told her, “You need to be an Asian vegetarian!”

So, for one week only, that’s what she was. I was with her on a couple of occasions when her meal was delivered, and, you know what? For hospital food, it wasn’t half bad!

If anything can make you crave a certain kind of food, I reckon it’s the mouthwatering fragrance of curry. So, when I noticed a large head of cauliflower in my fridge that needed eating, alongside a sweet potato, I knew exactly what my Friday-night dinner was going to be.

Usually, I like my curries hot, hot, hot, but chillies didn’t feel like the right spice to add to cauliflower and sweet potato. So I popped some black mustard seeds and whole cumin seeds in hot vegetable oil, then cooked the cubed sweet potato, followed by the cauli florets. A teaspoon of turmeric added some appropriately curry-coloured yellows, and a sprinkling of fresh coriander finished it off at the end.

Thankfully, Nicky is back at home and well on the road to recovery. But I think it might be a while before she fancies a curry again!

Advertisement