Cauliflower with pine nuts and parsley

This here Guardian article is what happens when Yottam Ottolenghi cooks something.

This here photo is what happens when I attempt to do the same:


The recipe is a mezze dish, so the Guardian tells me, and it involves cauliflower, chilli, pine nuts, and a parsley and caper sauce on top. These two dishes, you will rightly notice, are not the same.

The difference I think is in the deep frying (what, and the fact the photo for his recipe was taken by a food stylist and mine was taken in a tiny South London kitchen? You're too kind.)

The original recipe calls for some deep frying and then pouring on a few tablespoons of oil for good oily measure, and I'm a little bit shy of all that, not too mention far too lazy to clean out all that oil after the deep frying's done.

Instead of deep frying the cauliflower, I roasted it for 20 minutes or so and then shallow fried it for a couple more for a bit of colour. (By bit of colour, I mean slightly burnt. You got that, right?) Rather than deep fry the chilli and pine nuts as the original recipe calls for, I gave them a couple of minutes in the shallow fry too (read: burnt them a bit as well).  Hardly any oil in the parsley and caper sauce either - just a teaspoon or so - with the difference made up with water.

Oh yeah, it was gooood. The oil-water swap made it nice and juicy, and not at all greasy. I'd call that a win.

It reinforces my opinion that cauliflower is one of the superior veggies to grace the earth. I will be opening a shrine to it before too long, where I will leave gifts of parsley and capers to appease it. All hail cauli!

Comments

  1. Guh! I just tossed the last of my parsley because I didn't know what to do with it! I actually think yr version looks tastier. I can see the oil slicks on his. Cauliflower is totally under-appreciated and this looks simple enough that its delicious yet indescribable flavor can shine through. Pine nuts are so classy!

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  2. That is a very respectable non-deep-fried recreation on a dish. And cauliflower cooking must've been in the air this week! :) And I'm glad you're showing cauli some love, he tends to get forgotten in the mighty vegetable kingdom.

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  3. I agree with the above comments - non-fried is much better all the way around! I love cauliflower so much, and really should try something like this soon. Yum!

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  4. Fried with oil on top? Oh, no. I'd take your version any day of the week! I look forward to seeing this delicious shrine to cauliflower. I'd better hurry to visit it before you eat it! ;)

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  5. Your version looks sooo much more appealing to me! Why ruin a perfectly delicious cauliflower by frying? :)

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  6. I love cauliflower, and we usually just roast it, but this looks like a delicious way to have it!

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  7. I think your version looks MUCH better than the original. Had I seen the original I might have passed it by, but your dish looks delicious! Roasting is the way to go.

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  8. Sounds good. I would definitely prefer roasted cauli to deep fried.

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  9. I think your version looks much more beautiful and tastier. I would have definitely skipped the deep frying as well. That's reserved for fries and tempura!

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  10. the cauliflower looks awesome.. i dont like fried stuff most days.. and roasted cauli tastes much better than fried!

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  11. The only time I will say that cauliflower is better fried is in gobi pakoras! Roasting cauliflower is usually the best way to go and your dish looks really delicious, especially with that sauce and all of those chillies ;)

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  12. I'm by no means a no-oil advocate but deep-frying plus extra oil on top just sounds wrong. Roasting for the win! It's pretty much the only way I like my cauliflower, it fills if full of awesome.

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  13. Pshaw! Your dish looks just as good as the pro one, hun! And while I don't mind deep frying, I do love roasted cauli - great idea to switch it up!

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