ROASTED CAULIFLOWER WITH PISTACHIOS & PRESERVED LEMON RELISH - ebook
I’ll start by saying I’ve never seen the point of roasting whole cauliflower. What does it add over roasting it in pieces? Nothing except for presentation (and you still have to cut it up to serve it). And you miss out on the browned edges you get when you roast florets. But I always like to give an author a chance to prove me wrong, so I roasted the cauliflower whole per the recipe.
There are three components. The cauliflower is baked in a dish with boiling water added and under foil so it steams, for 30 minutes. You then drain off the water, pour melted butter and olive oil over the cauliflower. Season with salt and pepper, and roast, uncovered for another 15 minutes.
Meanwhile, you make a tahini sauce, which starts out in the usual way, with tahini, lemon juice, grated garlic, salt, and water. She calls for 2/3 cup water for 1/4 cup tahini, and that seemed like a lot to me. When I make tahini sauce, I don’t measure the water, I just add it bit by bit until I get the texture I want. In this case, I measured out the water, but still added it bit by bit, and stopped when the sauce was the texture I wanted. It took 1/3 cup. Maybe her tahini is a lot stiffer than mine, but I would steer clear of adding that much water all at once. She also has you add 4 tablespoons of olive oil to the tahini. I have never seen a recipe for a tahini sauce that called for extra oil, and tahini itself is over 50% fat. So WTF? I did add some, but not the full amount, and tasting it before and after, I didn’t see it as an improvement. She also has you add black pepper to the tahini, which was another WTF for me. I didn’t do it.
The final component is the relish. You mash garlic with salt in a mortar, then add pistachios and cilantro, then blend in cider vinegar, honey (I used vegan honey here), green chile, preserved lemon, and oil (1/2 cup is called for). After adding a bit of oil to get the mash started, I added the rest in increments, and stopped when I felt I had the right texture. She describes it as "a chunky paste (not a purée). " I didn’t need to use the full half cup.
To serve the dish, you are to plate the cauliflower, drizzle tahini around it, then add the relish on top, plus extra on the side. I didn’t serve the cauliflower whole. Since it was just the two of us, it seemed more efficient to me to cut it in half, then plate it directly on our dinner plates. I put the tahini down first, then half a cauliflower, then finished with the relish.
This dish was good, but I have a lot of quibbles with the recipe. First off, it did nothing to convince me there is any merit in roasting a whole cauliflower. I have no doubt this would be not just as good, but better, if the cauliflower were roasted in florets. Even better yet, air fry those suckers. Second, WTF with all the fat in this recipe? A full 16 tablespoons of fat, if you make it as directed. And it is just soooo unnecessary. You do not need to add oil to tahini sauce, FFS. She says this recipe serves 4, or 8 as a side dish. BS. It might serve 4 as a side dish. As a kinda sorta main, it served 2 in our household, with just a tiny bit of the relish left over. That means if made as directed, it would be the equivalent of a full stick of butter per person. And it does’t even make for a whole meal. Just absurd. The flavors are good here, so I would make it again, but I would skip the whole cauliflower and cook florets, and use the amount of fat needed for flavor and texture (which would be far less than the excess here).
Served with a pilaf of rice and chickpea orzo with dill. Served two. The small bit of leftover relish when on my tofu scramble this morning.
