Spiced cauliflower steaks with tahini sauce & olive salad
Cutting big slabs of cauliflower and cooking them in oil and herbs turns them into a beautiful main course.
Serves 2 (or 4 as a starter)
2 cauliflowers 4 tbsp extra virgin olive oil 50g butter 2 tbsp sumac 2 tbsp za’atar
for the tahini sauce
6 tbsp yogurt 1 tbsp tahini Juice of 1/2 lemon
for the salad
1 large bunch flat-leaved parsley Few stalks of coriander 4 sun-dried tomatoes, chopped 20 black olives, chopped 2 tbsp extra virgin olive oil Juice of 1/2 lemon
1 Remove the leaves from the cauliflowers and use a serrated knife to slice straight down their middles, then cut a thick slice from each side, about 2cm thick, keeping the core intact. Put the leftover cauliflower aside for another recipe.
2 Preheat oven to 200C/Fan 180C/ Gas 6. In a large frying pan, warm half the oil and half the butter together, then fry two slices until lightly browned on each side. Repeat with the rest of the oil and butter and the final two slices.
3 Place all on a baking tray and sprinkle the sumac and some salt and pepper over two slices, and the za’atar over the others (unless you are serving this as a starter, in which case you might want to sprinkle stripes of each on all). Roast in the oven for about 15 mins, or until tender.
4 Meanwhile mix together all of the ingredients for the tahini sauce and season well.
5 Then make the salad: pull the leaves from the parsley and coriander, and chop roughly, then mix with the rest of the ingredients and season well.
6 Serve the cauliflower fresh out of the oven, along with the salad and a bowl of tahini sauce for guests to help themselves to.