CAULIFLOWER – THE ROCK STAR VEGETABLE
Was it the rock-star
chef Yotam Ottolenghi, or was it cauliflower rice that has created such
an aura around this humble brassica vegetable? I’m going with
Ottolenghi says dietitian Nicole Senior. Why? Because he’s all about
deliciousness and flavour and a food culture that has lasted for ages
and not a fad that has tarnished the name of all carbohydrates. And
there are so many more delicious ways to enjoy cauliflower than smashing
it to smithereens and imagining (very hard) that its potato.
Cauliflower is having its moment in the sun. It was
never really in the shade as it has been trundling along for years in
the form of cauliflower cheese (what’s not to love?), but since
Ottolenghi made vegetables cool again and showed us how to cook them in
delightful ways, cauli’s reputation has ramped up a notch or three. From
a new take on cauliflower cheese with mustard, cumin and curry, a
gorgeous salad with pomegranate and pistachios, a warming side dish with
coconut cream and chilli, or cauliflower “steaks” with Middle Eastern
Spices, Ottolenghi has indeed written the book on how to make this
sculptural looking vegetable into something marvellous and irresistible.
There
are many more beautiful recipes but my absolute go-to weeknight fast
and simple approach is to cut a whole cauliflower into four quarters
right down the stem, dress with crushed garlic and olive oil and roast
until tender (I stick it in the BBQ but a hot oven will do just as
well). It is simply divine and I can potter about doing the other bits
of the meal while it takes very good care of itself. Equally, you could
throw it into a roast vegetable medley and it will make beautiful
mouth-music with other veggies who like the lick of fire such as potato,
pumpkin (squash), eggplant (aubergine), capsicum (sweet pepper), carrot
and parsnip.
What makes all this cooking talk even
more appealing is learning just how good is it for your health.
Cauliflower, like other vegetables in the brassica family (also called
cruciferous vegetables because of their cross shaped flowers), contain
phytochemicals called flavonoids and glucosinolates that help support
your immune system and may even reduce cancer risk. It is also rich in
vitamin C for healthy gums, folate for a healthy heart, vitamin K for
controlling inflammation and fibre for good digestive health. And having
high water content and rich flavour while also being low in kilojoules,
it helps fill you up without filling you out.
And just when you thought we’d thought of everything
to do with cauliflower, some smarty pants in the Australian
horticultural industry thinks up the seemingly unthinkable – the
cauliflower latte. From the “what-will-they-think-of-next” basket, comes
an experimental milky coffee with 7g of cauliflower powder per cup that
was served up to delegates at a horticultural industry conference. The
baristas couldn’t keep up with demand! The word is it added a creamy
texture and took the bitter edge off the coffee. The idea behind it is
to use up otherwise wasted fresh cauliflower by transforming it into a
dry powder. The powder could also be used in a range of other foods such
as bread and improve vegetable intake as well as reduce food waste. I
thoroughly approve both these concepts but I can’t help thinking if we
all cooked cauli like Ottolenghi, we’d gobble up all the fresh
cauliflower there is going and there’d be no waste whatsoever.
