Cauliflower Salad with Hazelnuts and Pomegranate
Easy
Prep 30min Cook 30min
This Cauliflower Salad with Hazelnuts and Pomegranate recipe is inspired by a delicious salad by the chef Otto Lenghi, who creates exotic fresh flavours. I have adapted chef Otto Lenghi’s recipe with a couple of different ingredients but fundamentally it’s his salad which I just adored when I ate it.
Ingredients
- 1 head of cauliflower, broken into florets
- 3 tbsps. of olive oil
- Salt and pepper
- 1 stick of celery, finely sliced
- 1/2 tsp. of cinnamon
- 1/4 tsp. all spice
- 1 tbsp. red wine vinegar
- 1-1/2 tsp. honey
- Salt and pepper
- Seeds of 1 pomegranate (optional)*
- 1 tbsp. of olive oil
- 30g hazelnuts, roasted, shelled and crushed
- Good handful of flat leaf parsley
Recipe Steps
Preheat the oven to 200c.
Toss the cauliflower florets with the oil and season with salt and pepper. Roast for 30 minutes until starting to brown.
Place the celery and all the remaining ingredients into a bowl and toss together, adjust the seasoning.
Add in the roasted cauliflower and toss together.
Serve warm or chilled.
A pomegranate is a fruit that has been cultivated for many, many years starting in ancient times. Mainly used for its juice and seeds it can be added to sauces served with fish, salad dressings, to marinate meat, or simply to drink straight. The juice can vary from very sweet to sour and the seeds are often used in salads and as garnish for rice dishes, meats and desserts. As the skin of the pomegranate is very hard the best way to open it is by scoring it with a knife and breaking it open. The seeds are separated from the peel and the internal white pulp membrane, which is not eaten.
Separating the seeds is easier in a bowl of water because the seeds sink and the inedible white pulp floats. Freezing the entire fruit also makes it easier to separate. Another very effective way of quickly harvesting the seeds is to cut the pomegranate in half, score each half of the exterior rind four to six times, hold the pomegranate half over a bowl and smack the rind with a large spoon. The seeds should eject from the pomegranate directly into the bowl, leaving only a dozen or more deeply embedded seeds to remove.