Roasted garlic cauliflower salad
Last winter I had a roasted garlic cauliflower salad at a neighborhood restaurant that sounded so good, but disappointed. I’ve been experimenting at home since to get the salad I craved. Dried-out cauliflower, burned garlic, and other problems ensued, but now I have what I want and the family called it excellent tonight.
I found that roasting the cauliflower uncovered, then covering it for the last 15 minutes or so kept it from getting too dry. I read an article about steam-roasting vegetables in Fine Cooking that takes a similar tack but in the opposite direction, roasting vegetables covered for a while and then uncovering them. I’ve adopted their steam-roasting method, but watch out for the steam! I opened the oven in a hurry and leaned into a near-scalding faceful of steam: don’t do the same!
2017 update: I’ve changed my method of cooking garlic for this. I used to use Fine Cooking‘s method of roasting garlic: smash the unpeeled cloves lightly with the flat of a knife and put them in the oven that way. The protective peel helps prevent scorching. But since I got a new oven my garlic kept scorching even with this method. I switched to roasting a whole head of garlic as in this recipe.
This cauliflower salad has become a regular recipe for me.
- 1 large or 2 small heads of cauliflower, about 2 or 3#
- 1 head garlic, excess 'paper' peeled off and top ¼ to ½" of the cloves cut off with a sharp kitchen knife, 2 TBSP extra virgin olive oil rubbed/poured into the cloves
- ⅓ to ½ cup extra-virgin olive oil
- juice of 1 lemon
- a few grinds of black pepper
- ½ tsp. salt
- about 8 oz. of washed salad greens
- juice of ½ lemon
- 2 or 3 scallions, chopped
- olive oil, salt, pepper to taste
- Pre-heat oven to 425.
- Break and/or cut the cauliflower into small florets.
- In a large bowl, mix the cauliflower with the extra-virgin olive oil, lemon juice, and salt. Sprinkle with a few grinds of black pepper and mix.
- Place the head of garlic, prepared as above, into a very small baking bowl or dish and place in the oven.
- Line a large baking tray with parchment paper.
- Put cauliflower florets on the baking sheet.
- Cover baking sheet with aluminum foil (it may take several large pieces) and place in oven.
- Cook for 10 minutes, then remove aluminum foil.
- Cook for 15 additional minutes.
- Cook for an additional ten minutes or so.
- Remove cauliflower when starting to brown, let cool.
- Squeeze cooked garlic cloves from the garlic head, mix back in with the cauliflower. (I don't wait for this, I use a kitchen glove and then wash the kitchen glove.)
- For the scallions, chop off the roots, finely chop most of the scallion, not including the leafy top of the stalk.
- Add cooled cauliflower and chopped scallions to the greens and mix. Add lemon juice plus additional salt and pepper as needed.
- Serve.
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