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Baharat roasted and smoked cauliflower, pomegranate cauliflower couscous, tahini dressing
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Rukmini Iyer's glorious ode to the cauliflower is full of Middle Eastern flavours from the mellow spice mix baharat, nutty tahini and pomegranate-studded cauliflower couscous.
First published in 2015
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If you’ve got a cauliflower or two lurking in your fridge, you could do worse than try out one or all of the components of this dish, if not all, for a spectacular dinner party starter. The spicy baharat roast cauliflower makes a wonderful contrast to the slices of soft, smoked cauliflower, with extra texture and crunch from the cauliflower and pomegranate couscous.
Ingredients
Metric
Imperial
Roasted cauliflower
- 4 baby cauliflower, or 4 large cauliflower florets (approx. 60g per floret)
- 1 tsp baharat powder
- 1 tsp sea salt
- 20g of unsalted butter
Smoked cauliflower
- 200g of cauliflower florets, cut into 1/2cm slices
- 1 1/2 tbsp of olive oil
- 1 tsp sea salt
- wood chips, 2 small handfuls
Cauliflower couscous
- 250g of cauliflower florets
- 15g of coriander, fresh
- 1/2 pomegranate, seeds only
- 2 tbsp of extra virgin olive oil
- 1/2 lemon, juice only
- sea salt
SAVE RECIPE
Method
1
Preheat the oven to 200°C/gas mark 6
2
Bring a large pan of salted water to the boil, and add the baby cauliflower. Boil for 2 minutes before draining
3
Place the cauliflower in a small roasting tin, dry them off with a bit of kitchen roll, then dust each one generously with the baharat and sea salt. Dot with the butter and place in the oven to roast for 35 minutes
4
For the smoked cauliflower, take 2 sheets of foil and place the wood chips in the middle. Fold up into a flat parcel, then slash a few holes in the top of the foil. Place into a wok or saucepan with a tight-fitting lid. Rub the cauliflower with the olive oil and sea salt, and place in a steamer basket over the foil packet
5
Place a layer of foil over the pan, followed by the lid, then place the pan on the heat (in a well-ventilated kitchen, or ideally outside). Heat until the foil becomes taut with the volume of smoke underneath (this will take about 10 minutes) then lower the heat and cook for a further 10 minutes
6
Turn off the heat and leave for 10 minutes before taking the pan outside to remove the lid, or you’ll fill your kitchen with smoke
7
For the cauliflower couscous, place the cauliflower and coriander in a food processor and pulse on 2 second bursts for 15-20 seconds, until blitzed to rubble. Tip into a small bowl then stir through the pomegranate seeds and olive oil, adjusting the sea salt, freshly ground black pepper and lemon juice to taste
8
For the tahini dressing, mix all of the ingredients in a bowl and season to taste with sea salt
9
To finish the smoked cauliflower, heat a griddle pan until smoking, then briefly char the smoked cauliflower slices for a minute on each side until you have nice char marks
10
Divide the roast cauliflower, smoked cauliflower and cauliflower couscous between four plates, along with the tahini dressing, and serve
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