I do hope some of you may recollect me mentioning that Cauliflower is one of my beloved vegetables, and after I found mini cauliflower and mini Romanesque cauliflowers it was love at first sight, in my mind, they run rings around even the baby courgettes and baby leeks! I mean they look like beautiful little green diamonds, such a beautiful shape, almost too pretty to be eaten!
I just had to bring these beauties home and rustle up something tasty and easy with them. I have written earlier about the many health benefits of cauliflowers and how they are an aid to weight loss. But here are some fun facts for you:
Every 100gm of cauliflower i.e 1 cup has:
- 25 calories
- Total Carbs only 5 grams
- Total Fat 0.1 grams
- Vitamin C – 77%
- Vitamin K – 20%
I have been obsessing with the idea of whole roasted Cauliflower and today I was craving something different for tea. I did not want to load on excess and unwanted calories and wasn’t interested in deep-fried stuff at all.
So I tweaked the original recipe and used fragrant baharat, a fabulous Middle Eastern with dried rose petals and hints of smoked paprika for a kick and roasted cumin. This simple snack makes for a perfect tea time treat especially if like me you are craving cauliflower bhajji/fritters ( bhajji in Marathi is a deep-fried vegetable fritter coated in spiced besan ie. chickpea flour)
I decided to dry roast two cauliflowers and coat two on the four mini cauliflowers just to see how the taste varies when coated with a greek yoghurt marinade.
Ingredients
- 2 baby cauliflowers
- 2 baby Romanesco broccoli or the Romanesque cauliflower
- 3 large heaped tablespoons Greek yoghurt
- 3.5 tsp baharat
- 2 tsp dukkah
Method
- In a small bowl add 2 tbsp Greek yoghurt and add and mix well 2 tsp baharat
- Pick one each of the baby cauliflower and the baby Romanesco broccoli or the Romanesque cauliflower and coat it completely with the seasoned yoghurt marinade.
- Place them onto a baking tray.
- Then take the remaining baharat in another dry small bowl and coat the other 2 cauliflowers thoroughly.
- Bake in a preheated oven for 20 minutes at 180° C
- Make a quick dip with the remaining yoghurt topped with dukkah
- Serve with hot Turkish tea for a Mediterranean Treat.
They really are beautiful little things! I must try and find some.
They are so pretty Tracy and so much fun to eat like this!
Oh YUM! You’re right they do look like green diamonds with all their facets and I love how you’ve cooked them Manjiri, I bet they tasted divine.
Janie x
Yes indeed they did taste really good and I totally love how beautiful and geometrically perfect they look!
I’ve just started eating cauliflower again (after not liking it for many years!). This looks delicious and I will have to give the roasting method a try 🙂
Oh please do Sophie, roasting works really well – hope you fall in love with cauliflower in all its forms, shapes, and sizes now!
they look so cute, don’t they?! And this dish tastes so yummy too! 🙂
Yes they look beautiful and mysterious and taste divine too!
How cute are they? I’ve never seen the mini ones before. Nice idea Manjiri.
Thanks, Jaq, ever since I saw Monica Shaw’s amazing recipe I have always wanted to make it on my own and I just had to buy these little beauties and try her recipe with a twist of course!
I love the mini cauliflowers – they look like they come from another planet!
Absolutely! They are the cutest geormetric shapes perfectly formed and edible – surely otherwordly then!
Perfect! I’ve been meaning to try more cauliflower so this is ideal!
Hope you give this recipe a go sometime soon Kerry 🙂
OH yes Manjiri, that is MY KINDA grub darlink! I LOVE cauliflower and romanesco too, so this is a match made in heaven for me! Karen
Thats just fab Karen 🙂 Really hope you try my recipe sometime soon then!