Spiced cauliflower salad

To use up the rest of my vegbox cauliflower, I used this recipe as a starting point (thank you BBC!). As I said before, I think cauliflower is yummy with plenty of spice, so I added a few things and some extra nuts and it turned out great. Roasting cauliflower isn’t something that most people would think to try, but it really does enhance the flavours. Here’s my version.

Coconut cauliflower dahl with cumin fried leeks

Cauliflower’s one of those vegetables that people seem to love or hate, probably because of the memories we all have of the watery, mushy weird stuff we were served up at school. I think it’s great though, but for me, it lends itself to spices, and lots of them. Served up as a creamy, substantial dahl, cooked slowly with coconut and delicate spices, or as a crunchy, exotic salad with nuts and dried fruit (my next recipe), it’s easy to enjoy cauliflower without any cheese sauce in sight*.

I love making dahl – it’s the ultimate comforting one-pot wonder – and I do experiment quite a bit with different spices and textures. This one is very thick with the addition the coconut and cauliflower (more of a lentil and cauliflower curry), but I think it could also be turned into a more soupy variety by using less lentils and more coconut milk or stock. I try to roast whole spices then crush them up as I think it makes the flavour deeper, but you can of course use ready ground if it’s easier.