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Different way to cook cauliflower

7 years ago

For Valentine's Day DH took me to a upmarket new restaurant that our local food writer thinks do the best chargrilled jumbo shrimp in town (he's right, they are DIVINE). The food writer also talked up their cauliflower salad, which we thought wasn't bad, but could stand some improvement.

The restaurant's version was charcoal grilled cauliflower, with oyster mushrooms, thick Greek yoghurt and toasted hazelnuts. The issues we had were that the cauliflower was pretty well a half head of cauliflower which was briefly grilled, making it still quite hard and not giving it much in the way of grill flavour. The other ingredients were tasty but there was hardly any of time, so it was really undercooked cauliflower with a whisper of condiments.

I sliced my cauliflower into more or less 1" thick slices, brushed them with olive oil and oven roasted it (as I don't have a charcoal grill). The roasting caramelised the outside, giving it yummy flavour. On top of the cauliflower I scattered very soft, marinated goat's cheese fairly liberally, then a good layer of sauteed sliced portobello mushrooms (sauteed in butter I spooned off the top of the pan juices of a chicken I had roasted with thyme and butter stuffed under the breast skin). Another scattering od goat's cheese, then a good sprinkle of toasted macadamias (I didn't have hazelnuts).

I thought it was really good, and DH said it was way better than the restaurant version. I'm wondering if the restaurant has had so many of this dish ordered that they've got a bit blase about it. I really couldn't see why the food writer would have raved about it.

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