This shows just how delicious frugality can be.
Sautéeing the cabbage ahead, even a day ahead, works well, but finish it with the butter and mustard just before serving.
Seasoning is totally your call and it can have as much attitude as you’d like, as in these warm-tasting spices of the West Indies and a garlic-tomato sauté.
You can vary the amount of water in this recipe in accordance with whether you want a proper soup or a more stewlike consistency.
Serve this on toasted pita wedges or over raw vegetable leaves, such as endive.
You can spread the sauce on tortillas, roast chicken or meats in it, use it to dress a jicama-orange salad…you get the gist. This sauce is meant to be hot, but if you use only one can of the chipotles in adobo and the full amount of the jam, it’s fairly calm.
I have made cauliflower every which way: I’ve blanched it, sautéed, boiled it, mashed it, deep-fried it, and eaten it raw. Until I read about it on eGullet.org, though, I never knew I could roast it. This recipe really brings out the richness of the cauliflower and matches it perfectly with the robustness of the spices. I use my fennel rub along with a few other spices. If you have sea salt, it works really well with this recipe. The cauliflower tends to shrink when roasted, so one head of cauliflower is about right for 2 servings.
One of my cousins was married to a Kashmiri gentleman, and for the period when he was working at the United Nations in New York he had brought along a manservant. My cousin let me have him once a week to cook and clean. His repertoire was limited—he could only cook dishes he had learned from my cousin, such as this simple Kashmiri staple, which we loved. Soon he was making it week after week, and it remains one of our favorites. In Kashmir, collard-type greens and rice are eaten as commonly as beans and rice in Central America, the season for them lasting from spring (when the greens are tender) until the snows start to fall in early winter (when the greens get coarser).
This sauce, without the mint, holds for 2 days in the fridge, but should be used at room temperature. The mint goes in at the last moment to keep its bright green color and fresh taste.
Lighter than yams, easily done ahead and good hot or tepid, roasted sweet squash turns almost candy-like in the oven.