Cauliflower, two ways (with one very good sauce)
A turmeric-yoghurt cauliflower salad, cauliflower fritters 2.0, and a new season of The White Lotus
The White Lotus is back for its third season this week. This time, we're in Thailand. No Jennifer Coolidge, sadly, but plenty of beautiful people behaving terribly.
It’s a shame because she’s so great. For years Coolidge has popped up in a string of forgettable rom-coms where she played someone’s quirky aunt or eccentric neighbour. Fun, yes, but in The White Lotus, she’s inimitable. Not just a comedic icon; she’s now in demand, a collective obsession, and a full-blown comeback.
It’s always interesting when something—or someone—you think you know suddenly shifts and you see a different side, or realise you may have underestimated them all along. It happens in film, in music, and, for me, often in food. Certain ingredients go in and out of fashion, overlooked for being too familiar, only to resurface as something exciting and new.
Comebackwise, cauliflower is the Jennifer Coolidge of vegetables (Did I actually just write this?)
For me, cauliflower has always had a reassuring and constant presence. Sturdy, reliable, like a few potatoes in the pantry or a bag of pasta in the cupboard. I can pretty much go on auto-pilot and roast it (to be drizzled with tahini), grate it (for a fresh salad), cook it into a curry, turn it into a creamy soup, creamy cauliflower cheese, creamy pie, creamy anything.
I love it. I really love cauliflower.
Which is why, fifteen years ago, when cauliflower was losing ground to its trendier relative, broccoli, I just couldn’t understand it. Apparently, people found it too bland, too beige, too old-fashioned. Sales plummeted, farmers stopped growing as much of it, and I ended up on the BBC Food Programme in 2009 to defend its honour.
Fast forward to now, and… well, we may have overcorrected. Cauliflower has now been cast as the great imposter—mashed into pseudo-potatoes, grated into ‘rice,’ and, most controversially, moonlighting as a pizza base. (I am not getting behind this one!) Some of these transformations make sense; others, less so. But its reinvention only proves my point: it’s the most versatile vegetable there is.
Roast it, grate it, slice it raw. Pickle it, blitz it, even crisp up the leaves. You may know the salad in Simple that shows its versatility in a single dish—roasting some, grating the rest, even using the leaves. They’re tempting to discard, but roasted, they add something delicious.
This week, I’ve got cauliflower cooked two ways. One is a spiced, roasted salad, layered with crunch and tang. The other, crisp, golden fritters. Both, sweet and savoury, in a way only cauliflower can do, both with the same sauce to save on time.
Make them together if you like, alongside grilled chicken thighs or steamed rice with lentils.
Both dishes are a reminder that cauliflower’s best role is still its own.
Start with a salad
We first developed this salad for our delis, so it follows a certain set of rules. The main one being that it must have layers. Layers of flavours, textures, and colours.
Roasted cauliflower is the base. It’s coated in a turmeric-spiced yoghurt before going into a blazing oven, where it steams on the inside and caramelises on the outside. The yoghurt does double duty—helping the spices cling to the florets while adding a slight tang. Make sure to drizzle the oil over the cauliflower after it’s coated, rather than mixing it into the yoghurt, so it doesn’t clump in the heat.
A mint sauce and a bright, herby salad go on top—two extra layers for complexity.
Cauliflower fritters 2.0
Unapologetically and unashamedly, I love fried vegetables almost as much as I love cauliflower. No guilt—just pleasure. Pakoras, tempura, bhajis, fritters…anything, really, as long as it’s grated or cut up small enough for even frying.
The difference between all the varieties of fritters usually comes down to texture. Generally (and that’s one big generalisation), Indian and Mauritian (thank you, Chaya) fritters tend to be crisp all the way through. Middle Eastern fritters—think falafel—are crunchy on the outside and soft on the inside (usually because of an egg in the batter).
Today’s fritters have an egg in the batter and they are a nod to the super-popular cauliflower fritters Sami Tamimi’s mother used to make for him, which appeared both in The Ottolenghi Cookbook and Falastin (hence the 2.0)
Cauliflower is sturdy enough to hold its shape but has just enough water content to keep the centre soft. I added frozen fenugreek leaves here (look for it as ‘Shana methi’) —defrost and squeeze out the liquid! - but frozen spinach will do if you can’t get them. Gram flour adds a light crispness.
Fritters need to be dipped, and I thought the sauce we drizzled over the salad above would make the perfect dipping sauce, slightly loosened with water.
Cauliflower fritters 2.0
Makes 14
Prep 15 mins
Cook 25 mins