Leftover Creation: Vegetarian Mashed Chickpea-Cauliflower Bread Recipe

Day 34.

This is a bit of a departure for me, but I'm making a savory bread that can pretty much be a meal. I was inspired by potato bread and the fact that people sometimes sub mashed cauliflower for mashed potatoes. I thought, hmm, Indian mashed cauliflower-chickpea bread. That could be good, right? Maybe. We'll soon find out. The revelation was also prompted by the fact that when I got out my rubber gloves to create my leftovers creation this week, they consisted of Chicken Korma, Curried Cauliflower, Chickpeas & Kale and Kale and Cabbage Soup. So, my choices for a leftover Frankenstein meal were to use leftovers in my leftovers or make something Indian. There's not a whole lot you can change once something's Indian-spiced. So, let's make it into bread. Yay! I've been wanting to do more bread at home anyway.

Mashed Chickpea-Cauliflower Bread

Ingredients

1 1/2 C Curried Cauliflower, Chickpeas & Kale

2 cups (or more) water

2 tsp. dry yeast

1/4 cup warm water (105°F. to 115°F)

2 Tbsp. unsalted margarine, melted

1 Tbsp. simple syrup 

1 tsp. salt

5 C(about) unbleached all purpose flour

1 large egg white, beaten to blend

 

Directions

Mash Curry Chickpea/Cauliflower mixture. Add water and yeast, stir to blend. Stir in melted butter, syrup and salt. Mix in enough all purpose flour, 1/2 cup at a time, to form soft dough. Turn dough out onto floured work surface. Knead until smooth and elastic, about 4 minutes. Form dough into ball.



Butter large bowl. Place dough in bowl; turn to coat. Cover with plastic. Let dough rise in warm draft-free area until doubled in volume, about 1 hour. Lightly flour 2 large baking sheets. Punch down dough. Turn dough out onto floured work surface and knead until smooth, about 3 minutes. Divide dough in half. Roll each half between palms and work surface into 14-inch-long loaf. Transfer to prepared baking sheets. Cover with dry towel. Let rise in warm draft-free area until almost doubled in volume, about 30 minutes.



Position 1 rack in center and 1 rack in top third of oven and preheat to 500°F. Using sharp knife, cut 5 diagonal slashes in surface of each loaf. Brush loaves with egg white. Bake loaves 10 minutes. Reduce oven temperature to 400°F. Bake until loaves are brown and sound hollow when tapped on bottom, switching and rotating baking sheets halfway through baking, about 15 minutes longer. Cool on racks. (Can be prepared 2 weeks ahead. Cool completely. Wrap loaves separately in foil, seal in plastic bag and freeze. Thaw loaves, then rewarm, wrapped in foil, in 350°F oven 15 minutes.)



Recipe adapted from Epicurious' Mashed Potato Bread recipe.

Yum. This is fantastic. The Indian flavor is pretty subtle. Almost more than I'd like it to be. But, it tastes pretty much like delicious homemade potato bread. This is my first-ever homemade bread (well, I made some bread machine bread about 10 years ago, but it was from a mix). I'm so proud of myself. I think I was a little disappointed that the Indian flavor wasn't stronger, but then I thought, "wow, I basically got way more nutrients into this bread than regular potato bread and it tastes awesome." So then I was proud and gave some to my toddler. She LOVED it. Granted, she loves chickpeas, so there's no need to sneak those. But kale is hard for her to chew. So this is fantastic. I will definitely make this again. And again. And again. 



Like to make new recipes from leftovers, but not this recipe? See more Leftover Creations.



What do you do with your leftovers? Eat them as-is? Make them into new dishes? Throw them out?



This post is shared with Simple Lives Thursday, Frugal Food Thursday, Recipe Swap Thursday and Penny Worthy Project.