Phulkopir roast recipe – a bengali style roasted cauliflower curry

Phulkopir roast recipe, a bengali style gobi roast, or indian style roasted cauliflower curry with step-by-step pictures. Phulkopir roast is a delicious recipe of bengali style cauliflower curry where cauliflower is fried in ghee and cooked in a special garam masala flavored creamy white gravy. This phulkopir tarkari is a niramish preparation of our Bengali cuisine. Niramish means a curry cooked without onion and garlic according to the entire Bengali community. Basically, potatoes are not used in this phulkopir roast as it is similar to our Bengali style korma or rezala recipe though prepared without onion and garlic.

For making this niramish phulkopir roast, fulkopi, or cauliflower florets are fried in ghee and cooked in milk, doi/curd, and cashew paste gravy flavored with homemade garam masala(recipe described below). Even the addition of ghee-fried cashew nuts and green peas make it more delicious.

As I said this bengali style roasted cauliflower curry is quite similar to Indian veg korma or veg rezala recipes. That is completely true. Because except for onion and garlic those recipes share almost the same ingredients. Though my rezala has a complete white gravy little missing in this recipe, however, texture-wise, it is more similar to my chicken korma recipe. But if we talk about the taste, most interestingly we can feel the same royal touch in this phulkopir recipe which is very common in our Indian rezala or korma recipes. And that royal feeling only comes because of using curd, cashew pastes, and milk. Though instead of milk use of cream make its gravy more creamy.

Bengali biyebari(wedding ceremony) to pujabari everywhere this phulkopir niramish roast is high on demand, especially among vegetarian people. In our bengali cuisine most of our cauliflower recipes are prepared without onion and garlic so in that sense it is included in our typical sattvic or niramish recipes. So you may easily have this dish on any veg day mainly during the festival when we mostly have niramish food. I mostly prepare this phulkopir roast during any puja especially on Durga puja or kali puja not only as it is a niramish dish but also for its easy-to-make nature and non-spicy gravy.

Though you may have this roast with regular white rice or roti, however, this phulkopir roast goes best with any bengali style veg pulao like BENGALI WHITE PULAO or BENGALI BASANTI PULAO, or with Luchi, poori, or kachori. Have it any one of these for experiencing the great taste. 

You may check some of my other Phulkopi recipes such as PHULKOPIR DALNA, FULKOPI MATARSHUTI DIYE BHAJA MUGER DAL. Even you may try some of my other Bengali style vegetarian recipes like CHANAR DALNA, SHUKTO, LABRA TARKARI, NIRAMISH ALOO DUM, BHOGER ALU DUM, and many more.

Must try this fulkopi’r tarkari in your kitchen and let me know your valuable feedback about this recipe in the comment section below.

Phulkopir roast recipe – a Bengali style roasted cauliflower curry

Prep time: 15 mins

Cooking time: 30 mins

Total time: 45 mins

Served for: 5-6 people

Course: side dish

Cuisine: Bengali/Indian

Author: Moumita Paul

Ingredients of phulkopir roast

• Phulkopi or cauliflower(medium size)
• 1/2 cup Green peas
• 10-12 cashew nuts
• 1 tsp ginger paste
• 2 green chilies
• 5 tbsp curd
• 3 tbsp cashew paste
• 1/2 tsp red chilli powder
• 1/2 tsp Kashmiri chilli powder
• 3-4 tbsp vegetable oil
• 4 tbsp Ghee
• 2 bay leaves
• whole garam masalas(cloves, cinnamon, cardamom)
• 3/4 tsp garam masala powder(described below)
• 2 tsp sugar
• Salt(as required)

Special homemade garam masala powder

• 8 Cloves
• 5-6 Cardamom
• 3/4 inch Cinnamon stick
• 1/8 nutmeg
• 1/2 mace

Instructions

How to make phulkopir roast recipe with step by step pictures

Preparation

• Take a medium-size phulkopi or cauliflower, cut it into medium size florets, wash it thoroughly, and soak it in salted water for 10 mins.
• In the meantime, ground the whole garam masalas(8 cloves, 5-6 cardamom, 3/4 inch cinnamon, 1/8 nutmeg, 1/2 mace) together to make a fine powder masala and keep it aside for using it later.

How to make phulkopir roast

• Heat the pan, first add 3-4 tbsp vegetable oil and 4 tbsp ghee to it.

• Then strain the cauliflowers from the salted water and directly put them into the pan. Immediately must put a cover on the pan to protect yourself from spluttering.

• Fry or roast the cauliflower in ghee & oil till the cauliflower gets brown in colour, remove it from the pan.

• Roasted or fried cauliflower(fulkopi) is ready, keep it aside for using later.

• Then roast the cashew nuts into the same oil till gets light brown in colour, remove the cashews from the pan.

How to make the gravy of this phulkopir roast

• First, add half crushed whole garam masala spices(4 cloves, 3 green cardamoms, 2 small pieces of cinnamon) and 2 bay leaves into the oil.

• Let the aroma comes from the spices, then add the ginger-green chili paste to the pan.

• Sauté the masalas for few seconds then add cashew paste to it. Stir it well. Let it cook till the oil separates from the masalas.

• In the meantime, add chilli powder(red chilli and kashmiri chilli powder) into the gravy.

• Add well-beaten curd or doi and mix it well with the gravy cooked in the pan.

• Then add salt and sugar as per your taste and to balance the sour taste of curd.

• Add the fried phulkopi or cauliflower florets to the gravy and mix it well with the masalas and cook it for some time.

• Then add a half cup of milk to the pan and mix it well with the thick cauliflower gravy, let the gravy boil, cover the pan and let it cook.

• When the gravy gets dry, add 1/2 cup of water to it and let the gravy boil once again. Again cover the pan until the cauliflower gets soft.

• Then remove the cover and add 1/2 cup of green peas & fried cashew nuts to the gravy, mix it well.

• Then add 3/4 tsp of garam masala powder, mix it with the gravy and cover the pan again. Let the gravy cooked for few more mins till the green peas get soft.

• After few mins remove the cover of the pan and check the phulkopi or cauliflower is perfectly cooked as per your requirement.

• When the cauliflower is nicely cooked then lastly add a teaspoon of ghee and mix it well with the gravy. Turn off the heat and cover the pan for few more mins to let the aroma of ghee infused into the whole gravy.

• Bengali biyebari style niramish Phulkopir roast or Indian style roasted cauliflower curry is ready to serve. Enjoy this dish in lunch or dinner with any bengali sweet pulao or luchi/poori/kachori.

Tips

• Though mostly I prefer to blanch the fulkopi before cooking, here I kept the cauliflower in salted water. Though both procedures do the same work so you may choose any one of these two methods.
• I prefer to use milk but you may use the same amount of fresh cream instead of milk to get the more thick, creamy, and slightly sweet gravy.
• Here I used frozen peas, you may use the fresh ones too.
• If you don’t want to have more calories comes from ghee. Then you may replace the ghee with vegetable oil too. Though for roasting the cauliflowers or for making the gravy, ghee plays an important role to make it more flavourful and delicious.