Seasonal local food recipe No.256 – Yotam’s cauliflower cake
I cooked this cauliflower cake at the weekend. It was rather time consuming to prepare but it looked impressive and tasted good! I served it with a green salad. It’s from Yotam Ottolenghi’s newest book Plenty More.
Serves: 4-6
Preparation time: 1 hour
Cooking time: 45 minutes
Ingredients
1 small cauliflower, broken into 3 cm florets
salt and black pepper
1 medium red onion, peeled
75 ml olive oil
1/2 tsp finely chopped rosemary
7 eggs
15g basil, chopped
120g plain flour
1 1/2 tsp baking powder
1/3 tsp ground turmeric
150g coarsely grated parmesan
melted butter, to grease the tin
1 tbs white sesame seeds
1 tsp nigella seeds
Method
Put the cauliflower florets in a pan and add a teaspoon of salt. Cover with water, bring to a simmer and cook for 15 minutes, until they florets are quite soft. Strain and leave in a colander to dry.
Cut 3 or 4 round 0.5 cm slices off one end of the onion and set aside. Coarsely chop the rest of the onion, and put in a small pan with the oil and rosemary. Cook for 10 minutes on a medium heat, stirring from time to time, until soft, then set aside to cool. Transfer the cooked onion to a large bowl, add the eggs and basil, whisk, then add the flour, baking powder, turmeric, cheese, a teaspoon of salt and plenty of pepper. Whisk until smooth, then add the cauliflower and stir gently, trying not to break up all the florets.
Line the base and sides of a 24 cm springform cake tin with baking parchment, and brush the sides with melted butter. Mix together the sesame and nigella seeds and toss them around the inside of the tin, so they stick to the sides. Tip in the cauliflower mix and arrange the reserved onion rings on top. Bake in the centre of a preheated oven 200°C/Gas mark 6 for 45 minutes, until golden brown and set: a knife inserted into the middle should come out clean.
Remove from the oven and leave for at least 20 minutes before serving; it needs to be served just warm, or at room temperature, rather than hot.
