Like any good carnivore, I was sceptical about making cauliflower steaks.
Luckily, a lonely cauliflower inspired me to make something out of the ordinary. And it was... The cumin, garlic and thyme coated cauliflower is insanely delicious, balanced nicely with some lemon kale and brought together by mild chilli seeds.
Give this recipe a go. You may be pleasantly surprised about just how good it is.
Ingredients for 2:
1 pack of chilli Munchy Seeds
1 medium cauliflower
3 stems of curly kale or 4x handfuls of chopped kale
8 cherry tomatoes on the vine
1 small clove of garlic
1 sprig of thyme
1/2 teaspoon cumin seeds
juice of half a lemon
sea salt and freshly ground black pepper to season
Butter or rapeseed oil to cook
Method:
Preheat the oven to 180 degrees C.
To make the cauliflower steaks, remove the leaves, sit the cauliflower on a chopping board (stem down) and cut off both sides until you are left with an 8cm wide, central piece. Cut this piece in half to form two 4cm steaks.
Heat the butter or oil in a frying pan over a medium heat.
Squash the garlic by pressing down on it, there is no need to peel it. Put the garlic and thyme into the hot oil, stir, then add your cauliflower steaks.
Season the steaks with sea salt, freshly ground black pepper and cumin and cook for 2 minutes without moving.
Flip the steaks over carefully, add a little more oil or butter if required, season with salt, pepper and cumin again and cook for another 2 minutes.
Remove the steaks from the pan, put them on a roasting tray with the tomatoes and roast for 15 minutes.
Whilst the cauliflower steaks are roasting, make the lemon kale. Remove the leaves of kale from the stem and tear them into 2-3" pieces.
Squeeze over the juice of half a lemon, season well with sea salt and black pepper and massage the kale until the leaves are bruised and reduced in volume to about half the original amount.
To serve, divide the kale between two plates, top with a cauliflower steak, put the roasted tomatoes on the side and sprinkle liberally with chilli seeds.