I've seen this little rice cheat hanging about on Pinterest and recently had the thumbs up from my cousin that it is in fact a real thing and not a giant Pinterest lie.

By substituting the rice for cauliflower rice in this mushroom biriyani you can make a flavour packed evening meal with so few calories it would be rude not to eat a giant cake for pudding afterwards... or pat yourself on the back for exercising some healthy restraint.


Ingredients: Serves 2 very generously with left overs for someone's lunch

2 teaspoons curry powder
2 teaspoons ground cumin
2 teaspoons ground coriander seed
1/2 teaspoon dried chili flakes (for a very light hum of heat, more if you like it spicy)
2 cloves garlic
1/2 cup coconut milk
1/2 can chopped tomatoes
1 medium white onion
1 pint punnet chestnut mushrooms
1 medium head of cauliflower -about 2 cups of flower 'flesh'
Salt and pepper

Method:

Begin by preparing your rice. You will need a food processor for this, I've bumbled along without one since arriving in the States, using a stick blender or accepting a new chunky style of cooking. Cauliflower rice needs to be made in a processor or it's just chopped cauliflower, because how every much time you have you will not be chopping it as small and as uniformly as the processor can do in 30 seconds flat.

Remove all the green leaves from the head of cauli then chunk into processor manageable portion. Blitz until the cauliflower its well chopped and is the size and consistency of... well... rice.

Finely slice the onions and mushrooms, and mince the garlic.

Using a large, deep frying pan or a stock pot,fry the spices on a medium high heat in a little drizzle of oil for a few minutes to release their flavours then add the onion and garlic. When the onions and garlic are fully coated in the spice oil and have soften slightly, add the mushrooms and stir fry together for 8-10 minutes until the vegetables are soft and all their juices have been reabsorbed.

Turn the heat under the pan down to low and scoop the cauliflower rice into the pan, mix well with the fried vegetables until the cauliflower is well coated, season with salt and pepper.

Add the coconut milk and tomatoes, mix in well then pour everything out into a baking dish and pop into the oven at 370f/190c for an hour.

Check half way through cooking, if any of the bits of onion or cauliflower that are 'sticking up' are burning, just poke them back down.

After an hour, remove from the oven and leave to rest under some foil for about ten minutes, or however long it takes you to gather your plates, utensils, accompaniments and meal companions. This resting time will let the cauliflower soak up a little bit of of the juices and become extra tasty!

Serve with some zingy mint raita (a couple of spoonfuls of greek yoghurt blitzed with mint and a shake of salt and pepper) and topped with sliced almonds for some crunch.