Cauliflower Salad with Pomegranate, Dates and Yoghurt Dressing
Sweet-savory, crunchy, soft and packed with flavor, this is not your ordinary salad and it's always the most popular vegetable dish I can put on a table at a party.
Prep Time20 minutesmins
Cook Time20 minutesmins
Total Time40 minutesmins
Course: Appetizer, Salad, Side Dish
Cuisine: Middle Eastern
Keyword: cauliflower salad, cauliflower salad with pomegranate, dates and yoghurt
3tspsumacThis can be hard to get in some places, I know. There’s not really a substitute for its sour fruitiness but a squeeze of lemon juice over the roasted cauliflower – NOT before you cook it – is the closest you’ll get.
Set your oven to 230⁰C/450⁰F on combination steam setting. If your oven has variable steam settings, use 50-60%. If not, don't worry! Just set to combi steam at the correct temperature and the oven will figure out the humidity for you.
Put the cauliflower florets into a large, solid stainless steel tray. Mix the garlic, spices, salt and oil in a small dish, then pour this over the cauliflower and toss to combine. Put the tray in the oven and roast until very dark golden brown, about 20 minutes.
While the cauliflower cooks, toast the seeds in a dry frypan over medium heat until they’re nutty and starting to pop. Remove from heat, tip immediately into a small bowl to stop them cooking and set aside.
Mix the yoghurt, orange juice and extra oil in another small bowl, season with salt and pepper and set aside.
When the cauliflower is cooked, transfer it to a large platter or shallow serving bowl and sprinkle with the dates. Drizzle the yoghurt dressing over the top, then sprinkle the toasted seeds and pomegranate seeds over the top just before serving.
Notes
Serves 6-8 as part of a meal.
This seems like a ridiculously long ingredient list – it’s not a 3-ingredient wonder, but it’s also nowhere near as bad as it seems in terms of preparation. The garlic and spices are just tossed with the florets before cooking, and you can put the rest of it together while the cauliflower cooks.
If you haven’t roasted cauliflower before, you might be tempted to pull it from the oven before it’s completely done – what you actually want here is soft, yielding flesh and lots of very dark edge bits on your florets. Those dark edges take on the most savoury flavour which is the perfect counterbalance to the sweet flesh.
I’ve called for pumpkin, sesame and sunflower seeds here – if you don’t have all three on hand as I usually do, you could do without one or the other of the sesame and sunflower. I wouldn’t omit the pumpkin seeds as they add a nice crunch and colour.
You can serve this hot, warm or at room temperature. Barely warm is my preference but I’ll take it any way it comes.