I have grown up having the best cauliflower cheese dishes with the family roasts – my family pride themselves on making a great béchamel sauce, over partly steamed cauliflower, adding breadcrumbs for a crunchy top, with of course generous handfuls of grated cheese… as Ottolenghi points out it sounds, and should be, ultimate indulgent comfort food. However he came up with this recipe to rectify the British innuendo of school system, puddly versions of this iconic dish.
Here is a wonderful, vegetarian main – whether as an easy and delicious picnic-like tart, or warm with salad for supper, or as a solid vegetarian option in the middle of a feast.
The hint of turmeric, and the base of nigella and sesame seeds give this recipe a special and unique flavour too.
Pictured: Cauliflower cake by OttolenghiMelted butter or olive oil spray to line tin
1 tbsp white sesame seeds
1 tsp nigella seeds
1 small cauliflower – remove outer leaves and break into 3cm florets with 450g of cauliflower to be left with
1 medium red onion
75ml olive oil
½ tsp rosemary, finely chopped
7 eggs
15g basil, chopped – when I don’t have fresh basil I have added some pesto (2 tbsp) which worked well (contains nuts to note)
1 ½ tsp baking powder
½ tsp ground turmeric
150g coarsely grated Parmesan or your choice of mature cheese
Salt and black pepper
Preheat oven to 200 °C. Line the base and sides of 24cm spring-form tin with baking paper. Brush the bottom and sides with the melted butter or spray oil, then sprinkle the mixed sesame and nigella seeds all around to coat.
Bring a pot of salted water to the boil, simmer the cauliflower florets for 15 minutes, until very tender. Strain into a colander and let stand to dry.
Cut 2 round slices, each ½ cm thick, off each end of the onion and set aside – this is to form the decoration on top which I think looks wonderful and worth the effort.
Dice the rest of the onion.
In a small pan, add the oil, rosemary and onion and cook gently for 10 minutes to infuse the oil and soften the onion. Set aside to cool.
In a large bowl, add the onion mix, eggs and basil and whisk well – then add the flour, baking powder, turmeric, Parmesan, 1 tsp salt, and lots of pepper. Whisk again til smooth.
Gently stir in the cauliflower aiming to keep their shape as much as possible.
Tip the mix into the prepared tin and spread til smooth – lay the onion in broken up rings randomly on the top.
Place in the centre of the oven and bake 45 minutes, until golden on top and a skewer comes out clean when tested.
Rest on a rack for 20 minutes before serving warm. It is also lovely at room temperature.
Serves 6
Pictured: Lining the tin with sesame and nigella seeds