Last week, I came home from the greengrocer with two cauliflowers as big as my head. There is a milky, comforting calmness to cauliflower that I crave in the same way as mashed potato or buttery polenta. We ate a lot of it this week; I topped a spice-spiked lentil pie with buttery cauli mash instead of potato; we ate these pleasingly fritters with crisp edges and pops of capers for dinner; and I baked the second cauliflower whole with panch phoran – a favourite spice mix used in India, Nepal and Bangladesh. It’s a quick flavour fix that works really well on roast cauliflower.
Cauliflower fritters with crispy capers
I cook the cauliflower in milk here, which gives it a wonderful butteriness. Vegans could use non-dairy milk and add an extra tablespoon of flour instead of the egg.
Prep 10 min
Cook 30 min
Makes 12 small fritters
300ml whole milk
1 cauliflower, trimmed of leaves and stem (reserve the leaves for roasting or to serve alongside)
Salt and pepper
3 tbsp chopped parsley
Leaves from 1 sprig thyme
1 large egg, beaten
35g plain flour
Olive oil, for frying
2 tbsp capers, drained
Herbs and crisp salad leaves, to serve
Bring the milk to a boil in a large saucepan, break the cauliflower into florets, add to the milk and cook for seven minutes, until softened. Strain the milk (reserve it to use in a creamy bechamel sauce for cauliflower cheese) and mash or blitz the cauliflower to a mashed potato-like consistency. Season well, stir in the parsley and thyme, then beat in the egg and flour.
Heat a good splash of olive oil in a frying pan. Shape the cauliflower mixture into 12 patties, and gently fry in batches for three minutes on each side, until golden – you may need to add a little more oil to the pan each time you fry a batch. Lift the fritters gently from the pan on to kitchen paper.
Wipe the pan clean and add more olive oil. Heat the oil over a medium heat, add the capers and fry until crisp. Serve the fritters with the capers, a scattering of herbs and a crisp, lemony salad.
Panch phoran yoghurt-baked cauliflower
If you haven’t had panch phoran (translated as five spices) before, it’s a brilliant, flavour-packed blend of spices, which I keep a jar of close to hand for dishes such as this. You can buy it ready-mixed in spice shops and Indian grocers, but I’ve included a recipe to make your own, too. Vegans could use a non-dairy yoghurt here (I recommend a coconut one).
Prep 20 min
Cook 1 hr 10 min
Serves 4
For the panch phoran
1 tsp fenugreek
1 tsp black mustard seeds
1 tsp fennel seeds
1 tsp nigella seeds
1 tsp cumin seeds
For the cauliflower
100ml Greek yoghurt
2 tbsp lemon juice
1 tbsp olive oil
1 thumb-sized knob ginger, grated
1 tsp salt
1 cauliflower
Rice, coriander leaves and mango chutney, to serve
Heat the oven to 190C (170C fan)/375F/gas 5. Toast the spices in a pan over a medium heat, until the mustard seeds start to pop and it all smells fragrant. Tip into a mortar and crush roughly. Mix three teaspoons of the spice mix with the yoghurt, lemon juice, oil, ginger and salt. Save the rest of the spices in an airtight jar for another time.
Remove the leaves from the cauliflower and reserve. Bring a large pan of salted water to a boil and blanch the cauliflower for 10 minutes. Drain and cool slightly.
Rub the cauliflower with the spiced yoghurt and put in a roasting tin. Roast for one hour, until the centre of the cauliflower feels cooked through when pushed with the tip of a knife, and the yoghurt has blackened in places. Scatter the leaves around the cauliflower 20 minutes before the end of cooking and drizzle with oil.
Remove the roasting tray from the oven and cut the cauliflower into quarters. Serve with rice, coriander leaves and mango chutney.
