Meat mains
Roast chicken and cauliflower with beetroot spelt
Roasted and spiced chicken, cauliflower and kale with a vibrant beetroot and orange spelt. Rather than spend too much time breaking the cauliflower into florets, just roughly slice it. It doesn't matter if the edges break up and crumble a little; nothing needs to be too neat or perfect. Spelt acts almost like risotto rice when it cooks; it absorbs the surrounding liquid as it cooks and plumps up. The beetroot will cook at the same time, giving you a vivid purple pile of grains. Spelt retains a little bite and chew to it when cooked
Ingredients
- 1 beetroot
- 100g pearled spelt
- 1 tsp ground cumin
- 350ml chicken or vegetable stock
- 1 tbsp balsamic vinegar
- salt and pepper
- 1 cauliflower
- oil for roasting
- 1 shallot
- 1 orange
- 100g curly kale
- 250g diced chicken breast
- 1 tsp turmeric
- 1 tsp black onion seeds
- ½ tsp ground coriander
Method
-
Step 1
Boil a kettle. Peel and grate the beetroot. Add it to a saucepan with the spelt, cumin, stock and vinegar. Season and bring it to a gentle simmer. Cook for 25 mins, or until the spelt has cooked and most of the water has evaporated.
-
Step 2
Meanwhile, preheat your oven to 220°C/Gas 7. Halve the cauliflower and trim away the leaves and stalk. Cut each half into 1cm slices. Put them in a roasting tray. Season and mix with 1½ tbsp of oil. Roast for 10 mins.
-
Step 3
In the meantime, peel and slice the shallot. Finely zest the orange. Strip the kale leaves from their stalks. Discard the stalks and wash the leaves.
-
Step 4
After 10 mins, remove the cauliflower from the oven. Add the chicken, shallot, turmeric, black onion seeds, ground coriander and a little extra seasoning. Mix, and return to the oven for 6 mins.
-
Step 5
After 6 mins, stir the kale in, too. Return it to the oven for a final 5 mins to wilt it.
-
Step 6
Remove the roasting tray from the oven and finish with the orange zest. Taste and adjust the spelt seasoning and add a squeeze of orange juice, to taste. Serve with the chicken and cauliflower.