Thursday, January 24, 2013

Roasted Cauliflower

This isn't a recipe, just a technique. I liked Anne Burrell's idea of roasting cauliflower into spicy nuggets as it has almost no taste on its own, but I was hesitant about using cayenne pepper on an entire head.

So I preheated my oven to 375*F, cut a head of cauliflower into little floret nuggets, dumped them on a half-sheet pan and tossed them with about 2 TB EVOO and a sprinkle of kosher salt. Then I made 4 separate piles and seasoned them differently:

Garam Masala blend
Cayenne pepper
Herbs de Provence (hey, you never know, right?)
Paprika and cumin

I roasted them for just under 15 minutes and tossed with a spatula, roasting another 10 minutes until golden brown and soft enough to cut with a fork. The nuggets were small, so they could probably get away with a total of 20 minutes. Fast and easy.


The Outcome: the cayenne was (predictably) too hot for me; the Herbs de Provence got lost but the flavor was still very good, I might try them in a cauliflower mash some time; the paprika and cumin, which I expected to like the most, was too blah; and the Garam Masala blend was both our favorite. Yum! So, I suggest you experiment with your spice cupboard too; go a little wild and crazy, divide it up like I did so you can do a side-by-side taste test, and discover your personal favorite.



2 comments:

  1. Awesome! I have some broccoli and cauliflower (frozen, sorry...but if it was fresh I'd manage to never get around to cooking it) that I was going to come poke around the blog and see what recipes you might have. This will work great to test some out!

    ReplyDelete
  2. Very cool! I'm sure it will still work with frozen, you might have a little more moisture and a slightly different texture but it'll still be good ;-)

    ReplyDelete