Yesterday, I decided to give the cauliflower rice recipe a go. You can find this recipe in every low carb website and blog. I got mine here but do read on to see how I handled it.
Since I was big on carbs before going low carb, I thought it would be nice if some things could be replicated – well, as best as can be replicated. So I was thrilled to see that you could use cauliflower to make rice. Actually, I am not a cauliflower fan but a rice fan and if everyone is raving about this, then it is worth a try.
I bought my cauliflower – a regular sized one. I forgot to look at the label to see how much it weighed so that I could do my calculations.
Update: I have done my weighing and calculations. I would estimate anywhere between 100-150gr cauliflower per person, depending on how big a portion you can eat and how many carbs you are allowing yourself to have. 100gr raw cauliflower has 5.2 gr total carbohydrates and 2.7 gr effective carbohydrates.
So, I peeled off the leaves, cut off the stem and then the cauliflower into chunks, washed the pieces and was now ready to rice the cauliflower. How should I do this – using the food processor or a grater? I noticed while cutting the cauliflower into pieces that it messed up the work table a little, so I could imagine if I used a grater, I would have little bits of cauliflower flying all over the place. Conclusion, use the food processor straight away.
Well, the first thing the recipe does not tell you is that a regular head of cauliflower cannot be processed all in one go in a 1.5 litre capacity food processor. You would be better off doing it in two batches. Ok, so I poured everything out and did it in two batches. It was quite easy. Just use the pulse button. That was a good decision – to use the food processor.
The second thing the recipe does not tell you is that a regular head of cauliflower yields alot of rice – a mountain of rice. I had fish and stir-fried vegetables last night and only required ‘rice’ as an accompaniment. I estimated I would need about 4 tablespoons. I probably had enough riced cauliflower to feed 10 people. I intended to make mock fried rice the next day, so no problem.
Cooking 4 tablespoons of riced cauliflower sounds pathetic but when you think about the way it is done, this is so practical. You wouldn’t be able to cook 4 tablespoons of white (or any kind of ‘real’ rice) but you can cook as many tablespoons of riced cauliflower as you want in the microwave. So I put about 4 tablespoons in a microwaveable dish and zapped it on high. Instead of cooking it for 4 minutes as stated in the recipe, I needed only 2 1/2 minutes for the little quantity I was making. The ‘rice’ was lovely and I hardly noticed that it was not real rice when eating!
Now, you must be thinking, why didn’t I just cook the rest of the riced cauliflower. In real fried rice, you cook the rice the day before, leave it in the fridge and then make your fried rice the next day. The recipe I found for mock fried rice called for cooking the cauliflower together with the other ingredients not like real fried rice. Since I wanted to cook fried rice the next day, I decided I would keep the cauliflower in the fridge and cook it the next day.
Unfortunately, I discovered ricing your cauliflower one day ahead is not a good thing. My cauliflower turned brown – was however, still ok to use.
Today, I took my usual fried rice recipe and substituted the rice with riced cauliflower – actually I don’t have a recipe. I just add stuff from feel. Here it is! Sorry about the quality of the photo.
Mock Fried Rice
Looks like the real thing. Tastes a little different but still surprisingly good. If you don’t know how to make fried rice at all, then google for a recipe and where it says rice, add the uncooked riced cauliflower. From that point, keep stir-frying till you think the cauliflower is cooked and then add the seasoning. Some people like it with a bite to it, others like it mushier – but don’t let it get too mushy. I would recommend scrambling the egg separately and mixing it into the cooked cauliflower rice. I found that the egg, when scrambled into the same pan as the cauliflower, tended to bind the cauliflower pieces together.
Well, I’ve ended up with a lot more fried rice than I wanted so it looks like fried rice paradise for the next few days. When I make this next time, I’ll add a recipe to this blog.
Yikes! No Carbs Please! 
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