The Recipe Room

We all know what cauliflower tastes like, don’t we?  I know I used to think it was just one of those stinky vegetables that is prepared by boiling the heck out of it until it turns mushy and pretty much flavourless.

However, it turns out that cauliflower can actually taste incredibly good, as long as you avoid overcooking it – a typical beginner’s mistake.  This quick and easy oven-baked cauliflower and garlic recipe brings the lowly cauliflower to a whole new level and is so simple to prepare that even the greenest of cooks will have no problem getting it right the first time.

The real secret behind the recipe is, as usual, the garlic and herbs.  The rosemary and thyme give the cauliflower a wonderful aromatic touch and the roasted garlic – well, let’s just say it’s almost too good to describe.  I use oven-roasted garlic in a lot of my recipes, mostly because I really love the taste of garlic, but my poor stomach has a hard time digesting it raw or even fried.  However, when you roast it, the flavour is actually enhanced, while at the same time the “bite” is lessened, so you can eat lots and lots of it with none of the typical side-effects.

Fresh rosemary and thyme are the best of option if you can get them, but if you can’t, then the dried variety will do just fine.   As always, the better quality the ingredients you use, the better the results will be.

As an option, try sprinkling some Parmesan cheese on top after stirring the mix in step 6. This version is a big favourite with my kids.

You need:

• 1 large head of cauliflower
• 16 garlic cloves
• 1 tsp rosemary
• 1 tsp thyme
• 1/2 tsp freshly ground black pepper
• 60 ml (1/4 cup) olive oil

Steps:

1. Preheat oven to 200ºC.
2. Wash the cauliflower and cut into small, bite-sized pieces.
3. Peel the garlic, but leave the cloves whole.
4. Place the cauliflower, garlic, rosemary, thyme, salt, pepper and oil in a deep baking dish and toss well, making sure all the cauliflower is coated in oil and herbs.
5. Bake in the oven for 15 minutes.
6. Stir the mix well and bake for another 15 minutes.
7. Serve immediately.

Ready In: 30 minutes

Serves: 2

Difficulty: Out of 5, it’s a 1!

Tags: cauliflower, garlic, gluten-free, olive oil, oven-baked cauliflower and garlic, rosemary, thyme

This entry was posted on Friday, 27 April, 2012 at 12:08 pm by Jack Williams and is filed under Less than 1 hour, Meal for 2 people, Starters. You can follow any responses to this entry through the feed RSS 2.0. You can leave a comment, or make a trackback from your own blog.