Roasted cauliflower steaks with tahini and dukkah

So,

I’m back. I’ve missed you.

2015 has been an interesting year, and although I took a break from blogging, I didn’t stop cooking, or eating, or buying cookbooks, or obsessing about food basically all the time.

I’ve been trying to think about what my food highlights of 2015 were, and its tricky because it was a very good year, but they definitely included:

1. My first ever proper thanksgiving dinner courtesy of my brilliant family in the US, including a whole smoked turkey which was absolutely the most delicious turkey I have ever eaten. I also experienced my first ever turkey-coma, which is a thing.

2. Growing my very own tomatoes for the first time

3. Coming second in a cookery competition at my workplace, with bona fide proper foodie Oliver Peyton actually eating food that I had made.

So yeah, second place! Pretty great right? For the competition I got to wear whites and cook in a large restaurant kitchen, with all of my ingredients portioned out in little plastic tubs like on the telly. I absolutely loved it – all shiny metal surfaces, massive pots and big knives. I won a copy of the National Gallery Cookbook, which is a really lovely combination of beautiful art and tasty recipes, and a whole load of Peyton and Byrne vouchers, which is very handy. Seeing as asides from food I absolutely love going to art galleries, this was a pretty excellent prize.

For the competition I chose to cook a vegan meal, as I don’t eat non-kosher meat and I thought that the chances of me overcooking fish in the pressure of a competition was too high. Once I was cooking vegetarian, the jump to vegan wasn’t actually that difficult, as most of what I wanted to make was vegan anyway. I also thought it was important to demonstrate that it is possible to create filling and delicious meals that don’t have animal products in it.

For the competition we had to make a savoury main, and my dish was:

Celeriac and artichoke sofrito with roasted cauliflower, dukkah and a pomegranate herb salad.

I’ve made the celeriac dish many times before and you can see the recipe for it here, all I changed was adding frozen artichokes and canned chickpeas instead of potatoes. I chose it because a. it is bright yellow and yellow makes people happy b. it is really delicious c. it cooks surprisingly quickly for something so hearty.

I’ve blogged about cauliflower with tahini before, but this was a bit different – its all competitiony and fancy.  It is more complicated, but definitely worth it if you want to impress a bit more than usual. And it is really, really tasty. Reserve the cauliflower off-cuts to use in something else, like soup, mash or cauliflower ‘rice’ (which sounds gross).

Shana introduced me to the joys of dukkah. It is like a middle-eastern crunchy rubble – the soggy crumbs that I have started seeing on top of some brands of humous does definitely not count. Dukkah is delicious on its own with bread and olive oil (in little bowls for alternate dipping), sprinkled over scrambled eggs, garnishing dhal, or with practically anything else.

Ingredients

Cauliflower, cut into steaks about ½-2/3 inch thick

Salt and pepper

Olive oil

Date syrup

For the tahini sauce:

(this will probably make more than you need, but always useful to have some in the fridge)

3 tbsp tahini (don’t use organic tahini as it is like cement).

Juice of half a lemon

Water

Salt and pepper

For the dukkah:

2 tbsp Coriander seeds

2 tbsp Cumin seeds

2/3 cup Hazelnuts (or almonds)

1 tbsp Nigella seeds

2/3 cup Sesame seeds

1 tsp Sea salt

Method

To make the dukkah, toast the seeds and nuts separately, either in a dry frying pan or in the oven. Rub off hazelnut skins (or buy blanched). Roughly smash/grind in a mortar and pestle with the salt. End result should be rubble, as opposed to paste.

Preheat the oven to 180 degrees. Fry the cauliflower steaks in olive oil over a medium heat, about 5 minutes each side, seasoning as you turn, until golden. Bake in the oven for about 10 minutes to ensure that they are cooked through.

To make tahini sauce, put a few tablespoons of tahini in a bowl and add a little water and most of the lemon juice. When you start stirring, the mixture will seize and become grainy, but don’t worry this is normal. Continue adding water and mixing until the sauce becomes creamy. Add more lemon juice to taste along with a little salt, and some garlic or garlic powder (optional).

To serve, drizzle the cauliflower artfully with the date syrup and tahini, and scatter dukkah over the top.

Roasted cauliflower with tahini and date syrup

Dear wonderful followers, occasional readers, and one-off Googlers,

Sorry that things have been a quiet round here. I have been having a bit of a hard time in the part of my life that isn’t to do with food or films. I realised that I completely wear my heart on my sleeve, so I have been trying to keep to myself, to contain any misery. I know it isn’t emotionally healthy, but I have never been very good at following my own advice.

What is interesting is that in spite of all that is going on with me, I have been eating relatively healthily, and doing more exercise than usual. Partly it is because comfort-eating is such a f**king cliché, and partly is that eating well and doing some endorphin-generating activity does actually make me feel better. I never thought I would be the kind of person who sweated voluntarily, but it seems to really work for me. I have been told on a few separate occasions that I have the legs of an athlete, so maybe the rest of my body will catch up soon.

Cauliflowers are for me probably the big fluffy duvet of the vegetable world. This recipe is really delicious, and I have been eating a lot of it lately. It is a bit like a healthier, Ottolenghified cauliflower cheese.

One medium-sized cauliflower will make enough for a mezze dish for up to 4 people. I tend to buy the extra-large cauliflowers wherever possible. I have left the quantities here vague so that you can scale up/down depending on how much you are making.

Ingredients

Cauliflower – separated into florets (ranging in approximate size from walnut-egg).

Olive oil

Sea salt

Tahini sauce (directions on how to make can be seen here. Omit the garlic and add enough liquid to make a good drizzling consistency).

Date syrup

Za’atar

Method

Preheat your oven to 200 c (180 with fan)

Toss the cauliflower florets in olive oil and arrange them in one layer on a baking tray. Grind some salt over them, and roast them for 25-35 minutes, or until cooked through and browned in places. Try not to eat all the pieces straight out of the tray, and let them cool to room temperature.

Arrange the cooled cauliflower on a nice plate (this is very important), and drizzle with tahini in artful swirls. Add an artful swirl of date syrup on top of the tahini (a little goes a long way), and sprinkle some za’atar over the top.

And feel better.

Cauliflower and Stilton Soup

Inspired by Claudie

I really love September. It is a time for renewal, and new intentions.

Rosh Hashanna (Jewish New Year) was a few weeks ago, and for the past three years I have celebrated, and participated with an incredible community called Grassroots Jews. Grassroots Jews is a temporary community that comes together for the High Holy days (Jewish New Year and the Day of Atonement) to create an inclusive spiritual environment, focused around the ideals of inclusivity, participation and co-creation. Observing the days with the Grassroots community has also been the first time I have ever felt any real spiritual connection to this incredibly significant part of the Jewish year.

At Rosh Hashanna I always make some resolutions. They are more ‘intentions’ than ‘resolutions’, and I use them to give a bit of purpose to the year ahead – as opposed to the traditional sort of resolution that seems to exist only to be broken. For example, three years ago I set the intention of having more adventures and putting my creativity into the world – and that is how this blog was born.

Every year some of my intentions are profound, and some are more prosaic. This Rosh Hashanna my intentions included ‘keeping things simple’ and ‘eat more cauliflower’.

This soup is, obviously, born of both of those intentions. It is amazing how you can take so few ingredients and create something with such depth of flavour. It is rich and creamy; perfect comfort food for when the weather starts to get miserable. A bowl would probably be in a meal in itself, so serve small portions if you want to eat more food as well.

Serves 6-8 with a bit left over

1 large cauliflower, finely slice the stalk and separate the top into florets

1 large potato, diced (you don’t need to bother peeling it)

1 large onion, diced

1 tbsp olive or rapeseed oil

1 vegetable or chicken stock cube dissolved in 1 litre of hot water

Approx 75g blue Stilton, cut into little lumps (more or less according to your taste)

Salt and pepper

Heat the oil in a large saucepan, and fry the onion until lightly browned. Add the diced potato, and fry for another 5 minutes or so until the onions are a little more caramelised and the potatoes have taken on a little colour too.

Add the sliced cauliflower stalks, stock, and a big pinch of salt, and bring to the boil and let it bubble for about 10 minutes.

Add the rest of the cauliflower, put a lid on the saucepan and bring it to a simmer – you can add another 250ml of hot water if you want the soup a little thinner – but don’t add much more than that.

Simmer the soup for about 15 minutes from when the cauliflower florets go in. When it is ready and the veggies are soft, blitz with an immersion blender. Add the Stilton, and blitz a little more. The soup should be really thick and creamy so make an effort to blitz out all the lumps. The cheese is salty so don’t add any more salt until it has been blended in – but make sure you taste and season once it has.

Goes very well with garlic-y croutons.

Here is a nice thing to do with your leftover Stilton: Butternut Squash, Sage and Hazelnut Risotto with Blue Cheese.

Inside the Grassroots Ohel (tent) - I was very impressed by their use of the pomegranate motif,  although I felt like I couldn't associate it with eroticism in the same way as normal pomegranates....