Side Dishes 101: Fiery Cauliflower

Cauliflower. The word doesn't exactly inspire the same passions as the mention of other foods: Steak and chocolate it is not. Regardless, cauliflower is a beloved vegetable of mine, but the truth is it's pretty bland. I've seen cauliflower used in a variety of ways - deep fried, slow cooked, even crumbled as a vegan replacement for parmesan cheese. It's versitility comes from it's flavor, which reflects it's pale, non-descript color. Cauliflower is a blank canvas, like boneless-skinless chicken breasts. You can layer whatever flavor you want onto it, the native flavor of broccoli's albino cousin won't compete. Not only can you add bold flavors to cauliflower, you can serve it alongside big, hearty flavors again with little in the way of competition between them.

Here's something that I made up for my brother the other week when he came over to my appartment. My brother and I had this fiery cauliflower along side some slow braised short rib - a perfect dinner for the cold days in between winter and fall.

Figure 1A. Golden, but not quite with brown at the edges yet.

Fiery Cauliflower

• One head of cauliflower, cut into 1-2" florets. Make sure you wash this stuff well, dirt tends to make it's way in between the stems and under the crowns.


• Four or five good glugs of olive oil. Don't use anything special here, again Colavita makes a solid, affordable olive oil.


• Two to four teaspoons of sambal. Most grocery stores these days carry this stuff. If you can't find it, feel free to try using sriracha, korean soonchang or any other asian chili based condiment you can get your hands on.


• One pinch of salt.


• Grated Parmagiano-reggiano.

Preheat your oven to Bake 350. In a large mixing bowl stir or whisk the olive oil, sambal and salt together. Toss the cauliflower in this mixture until it's well coated. Spread the florets out in one layer on a cookie sheet and roast for about 30 minutes, until golden with a little brown at the edges (Figure 1A). Scoop into a serving bowl and finish off with the grated Parmagiano. Depending on how much sambal you decided to use, this may not be for the faint of heart.

Until next week!