Oven-roasted Indian vegetables

Indian Cooking 101 – Recipe #2: How to make easy Indian roasted vegetables

Indian Roasted Vegetables: curried cauliflower, red cabbage and green peas

Indian Cooking 101 – our second lesson will focus on how to make easy oven-roasted vegetables. Indian-style. Think of it as Indian antipasto. 

Objective:

  • You will use one ground spice, which is the most synonymous with Indian cooking – curry powder

Now that you’ve learned how to make rice perfectly in lesson one, let’s move on to an easy, breezy Indian dish. Whether you like vegetables or not, you’ve gotta admit that oven-roasted veggies are hard to resist. There’s something about the caramelization that happens between vegetables and olive oil in a red hot oven that makes even roasted brussels sprouts taste like browned, herbaceous goodness. This is a simple dish that you can pair with anything you’re making for dinner — a nice piece of grilled meat or you can snack on it like cold vegetable antipasti the next day. It’s a dish my sister Myna and I make on a weekly basis. It ensures you get your vegetables and the Indian twist is slight.

You will be using one ground spice in this recipe: curry powder. Now, some of you may be smiling while others of you are frowning. Let me be clear: not all curry powders are created equal. The objective is to find one you like. You can find ground curry powder in nearly every corner store, major grocery store, or megastore these days. You can find it at specialty shops like Williams Sonoma and Dean & Deluca. Unlike some, I do not decry the use of curry powder in certain dishes. Curry powder has its place, particularly in things like curried turkey burgers, curried chicken salad with green apple and mayonnaise, and in simple preparations like these vegetables. If you’re really interested in more on this, see my post “What is Curry?” And finally, yes, I recommend using olive oil in this recipe, even though Indian cooking is not often associated with olive oil. Consider it an Indian antipasto. In all seriousness, olive oil is a terrific vehicle for roasting any kind of vegetable beautifully so it has that evenly roasted golden sheen.

How to make easy Indian roasted vegetables

Serves 6

Ingredients

  • 1 small head of cabbage, shredded (sometimes I cheat and buy a bag of pre-shredded cabbage)
  • 1/2 head of cauliflower
  • 1 cup frozen green peas
  • 1 teaspoon salt
  • 2 tablespoons curry powder
  • 2 tablespoons olive oil

Preparation

  1. Prepare cabbage and cauliflower and place in a non-stick baking pan. Sprinkle the salt and curry powder evenly, combine well. Toss with  the olive oil. Put the pan in the oven at 425F. No need to preheat. Isn’t that nice? Set timer for 10 minutes.
  2. After 10 minutes, take a peek and mix the vegetables around with a wooden spoon so they roast evenly. Push back in the oven and set the timer for another 10 minutes.
  3. After 10 minutes, pour in a cup of frozen peas. Push back in the oven for 5 minutes.

When it comes out of the oven, you should have a vibrantly colorful oven-roasted vegetable dish that you can eat as a side dish with anything else you’re preparing for dinner. If you don’t like cabbage or cauliflower or peas for that matter, you can substitute with a vegetable you like. If you use potatoes, be sure to dice them in small-to-medium pieces and they may need 5 more minutes in the oven.

Ingredients for Indian Roasted Vegetables: raw cauliflower, shredded raw cabbage, frozen green peas, curry powder, salt, olive oil.

From left to right: frozen green peas, florets of raw cauliflower, salt, olive oil, curry powder, shredded raw cabbage. Nothing beats the natural colors of vegetables – no food coloring required here! As my mom always says, there is no greater artist than Mother Nature.

Raw cauliflower and shredded raw cabbage tossed evenly with curry powder, salt and olive oil

Combine the curry powder and salt evenly with the cabbage and cauliflower before tossing the whole lot with olive oil

Frozen green peas added to curried cauliflower and shredded cabbage in the oven

After about 20 minutes in the oven at 425F add the frozen peas for another 5 minutes