Recipes and images by Emma Galloway
Cauliflower is one of the most versatile vegetables, as seen in recent years where it’s been used to replace everything from pizza dough to rice, but it’s still the simple technique of roasting that will forever be my favourite way to enjoy this vegetable. Roasted alongside chickpeas it becomes a tray-bake salad packed with flavour and texture, or blended with stock into a silky-smooth soup and topped with walnut brown butter for a real treat.
Harissa Roasted Cauliflower + Chickpea Salad with Tahini Dressing
This easy tray-bake salad brings all the flavour with very little effort. Tinned chickpeas add protein, while the zippy tahini dressing brings it all together.
Serves 4–6
1 medium cauliflower
1 red onion
1 x 400g can chickpeas
3 tbsp harissa paste (I use rose harissa paste from Vetro)
3 tbsp extra virgin olive oil
juice ½ lemon
generous handful coriander leaves, roughly chopped
Tahini Dressing
½ cup hulled tahini (available from Vetro, The Herbal Dispensary and Cambridge Wholefoods)
¼ cup freshly squeezed lemon juice
1 clove garlic, crushed
pure maple syrup, if needed
Preheat oven at 180°C. Line two oven trays with baking paper.
Cut outer leaves off cauliflower (and compost), then cut into bite-sized florets, peel the stalk and cut that up into chunks as well. Peel and cut onion into bite-sized wedges. Tip chickpeas into a sieve and rinse under cold water, then set aside to drain well.
In a large bowl, combine harissa paste and olive oil. Add cauliflower, red onion and chickpeas and mix well to evenly coat veggies with harissa. Season with salt and pepper, then spread onto trays in a single layer. Roast 25–30 minutes, stirring once or twice during cooking, until tender and golden. Remove from oven.
To make the tahini dressing, combine tahini, lemon juice and garlic with 3 tablespoons of cold water and mix until smooth. Add a touch of maple syrup if you think it needs it, then season with salt and pepper.
Squeeze juice of ½ lemon over the roasted veggies and scatter over coriander leaves.
To serve, transfer salad to bowls and drizzle with dressing. Any leftover dressing will store in the fridge for up to a week. Leftover salad stores well in the fridge for 3 days.