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
- 1 tsp bouillon powder
- 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
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Step 1
Boil a kettle. Peel and grate the beetroot. Add it to a saucepan with the spelt, cumin, bouillon powder and vinegar. Tip in 350ml boiled water and season. Simmer it for 25 mins, until the spelt has cooked and most of the water has evaporated.
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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.
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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.
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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.
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Step 5
After 6 mins, stir the kale in, too. Return it to the oven for a final 5 mins to wilt it.
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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.