This spicy yogurt pan fried cauliflower is a side dish that will give you some pep in your step!
This cauliflower don’t take shit from no one. Nuh-uh.
It’s one spicy and sassy dish.
I blame it for my near throw down with the post office lady yesterday. I get that technically I need to provide my own tape, but when I’m asking for like 2 small pieces and she’s all “well, you can purchase the roll over there” it took everything in my being to not drop the box and punch the (I will not use the word I want to right now) woman in the face. The same lady that stares at the 20 person line going around the door while she sits and eats her sandwich because it’s her “lunch break” on other days. I’d like to know in what business outside of government run ones it’s ok to purposely make your customers pissed off. Oh, that would be none. None of this would bother me anywhere near as much as it does if Miss stingy tape wouldn’t be retiring nicely with a sweet pension in a few years for working half-assedly (a necessary word creation for times like this) all her life. Or, that she’s probably enjoying way better benefits than I have while the general public, who she treats like crap, pays for them through our taxes.
I refused to buy her damn tape after a few heated choice words, paid for the box and left.
Had I not shoveled half a head of cauliflower in my mouth for lunch, perhaps I would’ve been a bit more subdued about the situation but the sass was a flowin’ and there was nothing I could do to stop it.
Besides the spice, the other fun part about this dish is the yogurt. Coating your vegetables in yogurt before cooking them in olive oil may seem and sound a bit weird but it does wonders for the flavor and the texture. You see cauliflower with yogurt dips all the time, why not coat it in the yogurt from the get go?
Whether or not I’m going to eat the other half of this before going back to the post office today is still to be decided. I do like a good fight…
Spicy Yogurt Pan-Fried Cauliflower
Ingredients
- 1 head of cauliflower, washed and broken into small florets
- 1/2 cup plain greek yogurt
- zest of 1 lemon
- 1 tablespoon grated ginger
- 1/2 a small yellow onion, chopped
- 2 cloved garlic, minced
- 2 tablespoons nutritional yeast
- 1/2 teaspoon garam masala
- 1 teaspoon curry powder
- 1/4 teaspoon red pepper flakes
- 1/2 teaspoon kosher salt
- 1/4 teaspoon freshly ground black pepper
- 3 tablespoon extra virgin olive oil for frying
Instructions
- Combine all ingredients except olive oil in a large bowl and toss to fully coat cauliflower in yogurt mixture. Let sit for 30 minutes.
- Heat olive oil in a large skillet over medium-high heat.
- Fry cauliflower in batches (don't overcrowd the pan) for about 10 minutes per batch until golden brown and crispy. You may need to add a bit more olive oil with each new batch.
- Garnish with lemon and parsley and serve warm.
Nutrition
Nutrition information is automatically calculated, so should only be used as an approximation.
Gina Matsoukas is an AP syndicated writer. She is the founder, photographer and recipe developer of Running to the Kitchen — a food website focused on providing healthy, wholesome recipes using fresh and seasonal ingredients. Her work has been featured in numerous media outlets both digital and print, including MSN, Huffington post, Buzzfeed, Women’s Health and Food Network.
I never deal with the actual post office anymore. We have little post office outlets and the people there are soooo much nicer. And helpful which is a bit of a novelty when you compare it to the post office.
This post cracked me up. You are funny! Love the recipe. It looks like a ton of ingredients but I realized I already have everything but cauliflower on hand. I actually have frozen cauli and I bet I could use that!
Whoa! never heard of making cauliflower this way. Considering I love cauli in any way, shape or form, plus all the spices you have going on, I’m sure this is a winner :)
Ok this sounds and looks spectacular! The only question is how to get the cauli smell out of your house after you’re done with it. Cauli, brock, kale, they do a number on the scent of things :)
ha, open the windows is the best I’ve got! Yesterday that wasn’t a problem since it was 65 degrees out but in the middle of winter it’s gross because I’ll literally wake up the next morning to that smell. Not really the first thing I want to be smelling in the day.
The absolute worst is fish. Or shrimp. What’s even worse is that even if I don’t eat it, around 6-9pm I can handle it. The next day, smelling food that I didn’t even eat that I’m allergic to, is seriously like…the worst! I would cook fish more often but the lingering smell…i hate it!
Ugh, I hate going to post office for anything! I think it must be the same everywhere, because even up here in small town Canada, the post office workers are the most awful to deal with. Every time I go in I leave thinking I should have asked if it would hurt them to move their asses. So frustrating! Love the yogurt idea!! Plus, those golden brown edges on the cauliflower are calling to me. So yummy :D
ha! Love that. I would love to see someone actually ask them that ;)
So much anger! :P
What a smart idea to marinade the cauliflower in yogurt ahead of time! This looks like such a delicious, wholesome and flavorful side dish. Thanks for sharing, Gina!
ughhhh i HATE USPS workers. the ones here in DC are super horrendous too. the line is ALWAYS out the freaking door unless you get there when they open and they’re such biatches. anyway, at least this spicy cauliflower hopefully cheered you up and burned (ha!) the anger outta ya! this looks delicious and i’m always looking for ways to do cauliflower!
This post had me cracking up…next time wrap up some cauliflower and leave it for her. Maybe she just needs a little sass in her life:)
ha! I love this. Totally should’ve done that.
I almost threw down with the post office lady yesterday too (granted this post office lady was located in SC)…I drove 25 minutes across town to send a bulk mail out (which is the world’s biggest pain in the ass already), filled out all the paperwork and had her get pissed off at me when I asked a question…God forbid you have to actually do your job and help someone…
THEN she calls me an hour later and tells me that my business hasn’t paid our $200 annual fee and that I need to bring her a check for that amount by the end of the day…then when I inform her that’s not possible (I don’t write the checks around here…obviously…if I did, I would not be the one dealing with angry postal workers and bulk mailings), she tells me that if we don’t pay it by tomorrow, I will have to drive 25 minutes BACK and pick up all my mail because “we’re not allowed to hold it for you and we certainly can’t send it when you haven’t paid your annual fee.” Grr. Have I mentioned we don’t get paid mileage or anything like that?
I almost threw my office phone at the wall…almost. Sorry for the long comment, I just had to take the opportunity to reciprocate and vent to someone who understands – haha. Hope your experience goes better today!
I’m so glad you vented. Makes me feel like less of a crazy person for knowing others can’t stand the post office either!
Just thought you would like to know that the post office, and postal workers salaries and benefits, are not tax-supported. The post office, since the Postal Reorganization Act of 1970, has received no tax money, except for money set aside to compensate the post office for free services provided to blind people. The post office is supposed to be a semi-private organization and it is revenue-neutral. So it’s supposed to be run like a business, but Congress has also hampered it with rules that prevent it from running very efficiently. Here is an informative article about the USPS; https://usgovinfo.about.com/od/consumerawareness/a/uspsabout.htm
Finally, there are rude and ungracious people in every walk of life. It doesn’t seem fair to generalize the bad behavior of one to all “government” employees, most of whom work quite hard and provide important services for all of us.