Cauliflower looks like the ghost of broccoli, or a human brain that has been drained of blood. As is the case with many overlooked vegetables, boiling is the absolutely second-worst way to cook it (we do not talk about cauliflower rice), while roasting is best, to coax out its sweet and nutty flavours. A whole head is very good and affordable in Australia at the moment and can easily feed a whole family.
Meera Sodha’s roast cauliflower with harissa pilaf
Marrying florets with warm spices and fragrant baked rice, Meera Sodha’s vegan recipe is finished with a drizzle of fresh lemon juice to keep the flavour fresh. Pick a purple cauliflower and the acid at the end will flush the florets bright pink. You will need two baking dishes for this one, and enough foil to cover them.
Rukmini Iyer’s quick and easy spiced roasted cauliflower with chickpeas, halloumi and lemony bulgur
This is another double-tray recipe boosted with chickpeas and halloumi to make it a more substantial meal but note it serves three – or two for dinner, plus extra for tomorrow’s lunchbox. The recipe also calls for half a pomegranate which, aside from pairing well with roasted cauliflower, is in season in Australia.
Alice Zaslavsky’s chicken and cauliflower rissoles
It’s straight to the pool room with these crunchy morsels. Alice Zaslavsky’s rissoles are a spin-off of her childhood’s Georgian kotletki, rolled in panko for a extra-crunchy coat. You need only a quarter of a cauliflower for this recipe, and combining the higher-moisture florets and chicken mince – rather than chicken alone – results in juicier rissoles.
Thomasina Miers’ crispy cauliflower steaks with a saffron escabeche
While Zaslavsky picks panko, Miers prefers polenta as the crispy coat for these cauliflower steaks, which are flash-fried, roasted then served with an escabeche of floret offcuts – and not a cow in sight.
Felicity Cloake’s cauliflower cheese
There’s white food, then there’s literal white food: cauliflower baked in a sauce made of onion, cream, flour, white bread and cheese (OK, the cheese is yellow-ish). If you can’t find lancashire cheese, Cloake says any hard cheese will do, including cheddar, gruyere and red leicester. Yes, the cauliflower is boiled first, but that’s followed by frying in a good amount of butter, then grilling in cheese sauce until it’s golden and bubbling, like a hedonistic brassica volcano.
For a variation, Tom Hunt’s recipe uses a whole head, leaves and all; while turmeric, mustard powder and red leicester cheese colours the humble all-white veg a show-stopping orange.
Meera Sodha’s cauliflower korma
Why cook with one cauliflower when you could use up two? You’ll need a couple of big heads for this recipe – a whopping 1.6kg in total. Meera Sodha once regarded korma as “the curry for people who were scared of curries” until she was converted by a delicate rendition in a Brick Lane curry house. Her vegan recipe replicates korma’s creaminess without the dairy – choose the non-dairy milk of your choice, I imagine unsweetened soy would be good for a creamy mouthfeel.
Tony Tan’s whole roasted char siu cauliflower
Tony Tan’s recipe cleverly combines the sweet and smoky flavours of char siu, the Cantonese roast pork, with roasted vegetable. The method is simple: simmer the head, blitz the marinade, then smear it all over and pop it in the oven. Colour: an alluring burgundy.
Felicity Cloake’s aloo gobi
Whenever I’m in a what-to-cook rut I recall the chef Rupal Bhatikar’s formula for making a great Indian curry. Cloake’s take on the much-loved aloo gobi treads a similar path, though she fries the potato and cauliflower for extra brownie points – in other words Maillard reaction flavour – before frizzling the onions. The recipe calls for waxy potatoes, low-starch, high-moisture taters that hold their shape during cooking. In Australia, dutch creams are your most affordable and widely available waxy spuds.
Georgina Hayden’s cauliflower, lentils and chorizo warm salad
Whenever I boil dried lentils I inevitably find myself shouting at the pot – will those evil lentils ever finish cooking? Reading Hayden’s ingredients list, I feel my body relax at “400g tin”, where it’s the legumes that are drained, not me. It’s quick! It’s easy! And it will make good lunch leftovers.
Ravinder Bhogal’s whole roast cauliflower wellington with cheese sauce
Now we’re getting fancy, combining two cauli classics. Take a whole roasted cauliflower, coat it in a mushroom and chestnut mixture, drape it in decorative butter puff pastry, and serve with a mustard-spiked cheese sauce. It’ll take you almost two and a half hours to complete this masterpiece, so bookmark it for weekends and special occasions.
Yotam Ottolenghi’s curried cauliflower cheese filo pie
Another cauliflower, cheese and pastry combo, though Yotam Ottolenghi’s recipe has more of a “fridge raid” nature than Ravinder Bhogal’s dish. With 150g cheddar, 100g butter and more than half a litre of milk, it leans heavily into wintertime comfort eating. After the pie has baked, make sure you leave plenty of rest time – at least 15 minutes – or you’ll blanch your mouth with its molten filling.
Sophie Wyburd’s cauliflower cheese risotto
We can scrub cauliflower rice from culinary history but cauliflower risotto I will accept. Here, half the head is cut into florets and roasted; the other half is grated then sauteed with onions for the soffritto. As with all risotto, slow and steady is the key – Sophie Wyburd’s recipe stirs in the hot stock, one ladle at a time, over the course of 30 minutes.