I have always been a fan of cauliflower. I like it cooked, roasted, mashed, as cauliflower rice or steamed. But a few years ago, I came across an Israelian dish - a whole roasted cauliflower. And this was a revelation!!
Now, you might think that eating simply a head of cauliflower won’t be very satisfactory as the vegetable itself seems very plain. But the crispy crust on the outside, the butter-like flavour and consistency in the inside makes this a very flavourful dish.
I am not gonna fuss around for too long reminiscing about the deliciousness of this dish - let's get cooking.
Here's my recipe which will definitely hit all the right spots...
Prep time: 45 mins
Cook time: 35 mins
Total time: 1 hour 20 mins
Serves: 4
Ingredients
1 whole medium size head of cauliflower covered in green leaves
3 tbsp olive oil
good quality sea salt
3 tbsp tahini
3 tbsp vegan yoghurt (for example soya yoghurt)
1/2 lemon
1 handful of flat parsley, chopped
2-3 tbsp pomegranate seeds
salt & pepper to taste
Method
Preheat oven to 200 °C.
Place cauliflower in a metal pot and fill 3/4th of it with water. Add 10 g salt per litter of water (this might sound a lot for some of you but trust me, it makes all the difference). Cover with lid, bring to boil and then lower the heat to medium and continue to boil for 10 min. Drain it. You can use the cauliflower water for a soup base or vegetable broth base. Refrigerate up to a few days. In the water you will find valuable electrolytes that you don't want to just drain down the sink.
Either brush the cauliflower with olive oil or put some of the oil on your hands and rub the cauliflower. I have made a spice mix with coriander, garlic powder, turmeric & ginger powder, salt and mixed it with the olive oil.
Place cauliflower on a baking dish and bake until the top turns golden. I like to keep in in the oven a little longer so the crust is really crispy and almost dark brown (some spots even burned) but this makes it taste even better.
In the meantime, mix tahini, vegan yoghurt, lemon juice from 1/2 lemon, garlic powder some salt and pepper. Adjust to taste by adding more tahini or lemon juice if you like.
Drizzle tahini sauce on top of cauliflower and sprinkle with pomegranate seeds and chopped parsley leaves.
Serve warm not hot (though this dish tastes still amazing lukewarm) as a starter or with other mezze and bread as a main dish.
Last but not least enjoy the goodness this dish brings to the table
This dish comes in variations. It also works great with couscous and a warming curry sauce. Curry sauce to be found soon on the blog. :)
