We start by preparing our vegetables. You need to wash the cauliflower first and remove the leaves afterwards. For the cabbage, you need to work the other way around: remove the outer leaves if they are damaged and then wash it very properly. Take a big knife and cut the cabbage into thin slices of a length that will easily go into your mouth. Now you take the cauliflower and cut off the florets. You can use the thinner stems as well, you just need to cut them into small pieces so that they will get properly soft when you cook them. Keep them separately from the cauliflower florets, though, as they will take longer to get done.

Heat up the oil in a pan and add cumin, mustard seeds, asafetida and in the end the fresh ginger. Stir the spices for a little while and put the cauliflower stems into the pan. Put the lid on the pan and let the cauliflower stems cook for about two minutes before adding the cauliflower florets, too. Sprinkle salt on top of it, mix it and put the lid back on. Put the stove on medium heat and stir from time to time.

After about five minutes, you can take off the lid and put garam masala, coriander powder, turmeric and ginger powder. Mix the spices well into the cauliflower, place the lid back on for one or two minutes more and let it cook further.

The cauliflower should now be about 40% cooked and you can add the cabbage into your pan. Mix it all well, so that your cabbage gets in touch with all spices. Now close the lid again and let the cabbage get cooked as well. Stir from time to time.

It now depends on how you like your cabbage whether you like it fully cooked and soft or you like it when you have a bit more to bite – after ten to fifteen minutes, whenever you think you have nearly reached that level, open the lid and let the water that accumulated vaporize. You can turn the heat up to accelerate the process but keep on stirring to make sure the vegetables don’t stick to the pot.

When the water is gone and the cabbage is as soft as you like it, your cauliflower and cabbage dish is ready!

Ayurvedic Benefits

Cauliflower and cabbage have about the same Ayurvedic qualities. Both vegetables pacify pitta and kapha and increase vata. Obviously that is great for people with low vata but before you search for another dish because you think it will create too much gas for you or increase your vata too much, let me tell you how we balanced this effect! We used spices like cumin, ginger and mustard to make the dish a bit ‘hotter’ which will balance the cool vata. So don’t worry and enjoy!