Fun and Puns with Poppadoms

Susan, over at FatFreeVegan has an inspired-looking lentil and cauliflower curry dish I simply had to try out. The only problem? My Beloved turns a perculiar shade of purple when confronted by members of the brassica family. In this instance: cauliflower.

As a child, I was never overly partial to the white florets, but these days I find myself increasingly interested in getting my gnashers around those tender little morsels. Be that as it may, I knew that hiding the cauliflower amidst the lentils and calling it good would not fool My Beloved, so I substituted potato instead and this is the result:



It is served here with a simple white basmati rice (yes, brown basmati is infinitely preferable, but sometime you have to pick your battles...) and poppadoms! Eons (well, at least a couple of months) ago, one of My Beloved's colleagues gave him a poppadom cooker. It's a little mesh-type device with a handle and you sit it on top of your stove flame to cook the poppadoms. Well, we'd never quite had the nerve to test it out, assuming that there was some trick or technique that you had to learn at your mother's knee, but this proved to be a fallacy.

On a trip to the local asian grocery store, we happened upon some poppadoms in the raw (as it were) and so gave it a go.

And it is simplicity itself!

All you do is lay one on the mesh, pop it over the flame and watch as it blisters beautifully. When it's almost all blistered, flip it over to complete and stack high!

I am perplexed as to why these are not given away in Indian restaurants as a courtesy, they are that simple to make! Yes, if I were Queen of the World, there'd be a free poppadom on every plate!

Vote for me in '08 and Stay Vegan, Friends!