This delicious salad is from one of my very favourite cookbooks, Ottolenghi’s “Jerusalem”. If you are looking for a great cookbook that impresses your guest 100% of the time, I highly recommend this one – many of the recipes are also freely available online.
Ingredients:
- 1 head cauliflower, broken into small florets
- 5 tablespoons olive oil
- 1 large celery stalk, cut on an angle into slices (2/3 cup total)
- 5 tablespoons hazelnuts, with skins
- ⅓ cup small flat-leaf parsley leaves, picked
- ⅓ cup pomegranate seeds (from about 1/2 medium pomegranate)
- generous 1/4 teaspoon ground cinnamon
- generous 1/4 teaspoon ground allspice
- 1 tablespoon sherry vinegar
- 1 teaspoon maple syrup
- Salt and freshly ground black pepper
Method:
- Preheat oven to 220 degrees.
- Mix the cauliflower with 3 tablespoons of the olive oil, 1/2 teaspoon salt and some black pepper. Spread out in a roasting pan and roast on the top oven rack for 25 to 35 minutes, until the cauliflower is crisp and parts of it have turned golden brown. Transfer to a large mixing bowl and set aside to cool.
- Decrease the oven temperature to 170 degrees. Spread the hazelnuts on a baking sheet lined with parchment paper and roast for 17 minutes.
- Allow the nuts to cool a little, then coarsely chop them and add to the cauliflower, along with the remaining oil and the rest of the ingredients. Stir, taste and season with salt and pepper accordingly. Serve at room temperature.
