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whole roasted cauliflower with piquant parsley dressing

Piquant Parsley Dressing for a Whole Roasted Cauliflower Salad

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Ingredients Method Notes

Ingredients
  

  • 1 whole cauliflower with leaves removed and stem trimmed
  • A few teaspoons olive or other nutty oil for roasting
  • Mixed salad ingredients such as tomatoes, shredded cabbage, sprouts, lettuces etc.
For the piquant parsley dressing:
  • 10-15 Almonds or hazelnuts plus a few more to chop and garnish
  • 2-3 cloves of garlic
  • 1/4 cup Extra Virgin Olive oil or substitute with a nutty oil of your choosing
  • 1 tablespoon Dijon mustard
  • 1 small bunch of flat-leaf Parsley, or a combination of parsley, basil, and coriander leaves
  • A few splashes of White Wine Vinegar or the juice of a large lemon
  • Red pepper flakes to taste
  • Brown sugar or jaggery to taste
  • salt to taste

Method
 

Roasting the cauliflower:
  1. Preheat oven to 180C/375C
  2. Place the whole cauliflower on a baking sheet and rub with the olive or other oil. Season with salt and stick in the oven for about 30 minutes, or until the florets are browning.
For the piquant parsley dressing:
  1. Toss all your ingredients into a blender and whizz away!
Assembly:
  1. Place the roasted cauliflower on a serving dish, and arrange the other salad ingredients all around.

Notes

Even a decent sized cauliflower head takes a fair bit of dressing, but if you have some left over--don't fret. It serves really well with all manner of salads, so save it and use it within a few days to pep up your next one!
You can also vary the taste of this dressing by using lime juice in place of white wine vinegar, or a nice truffle or other nutty oil in place of extra virgin olive. Use cashews in place of almonds and hazelnuts. This is a wonderfully flexible recipe so, mix it up!