There are times in my life when certain ingredients and cooking methods are simply perfect and I just can’t get enough of them. One of those ingredients is plain old cauliflower, and it absolutely has to be oven cooked.
Apart from the fact that using the oven is often easier, quicker and cleaner than many other methods, when you’re cooking a vegetable that’s over 90 percent water it’s the way to ensure it tastes great.
So if I get the munchies late in the evening, then oven-roasted cauliflower works pretty well as a midnight snack. Because I can’t really think of a recipe that’s easier than this: take two medium-sized cauliflower heads and cut them into slices 3 cm thick. Place them in a bowl with 4 tbsp olive oil, the juice and rind of an organic lemon, 1 tsp salt and ½ tsp ground cumin, and mix.
Heat the oven to 180 °C (hot air), place the cauliflower slices side by side on a baking tray and roast for around 30 minutes until nicely browned. While you’re waiting for them to cook you can mix up some mayonnaise or – my favourite – sesame yoghurt as a dip.
Here’s how: combine 300 g Greek yoghurt with 150 g tahini (sesame paste), 2 tbsp roasted sesame seeds, salt and pepper and mix well. Served with the cauliflower, it makes a wonderful light snack or a simple yet sophisticated meal. And if there’s any of the cauliflower left, an unusual occurrence, then the next day you can use it in something else, like a salad. For me, that means even more moments that are just perfect.