We recently had our favourite MasterChef contestant & top 5 finalist, Arum Nixon, curate the Oct/Nov Discovery Box. This seriously delicious box contained some of Arum's favourite ingredients to cook with, including the Box Grove Vineyard Verjuice + Wits End gorgeous lentils which are a star ingredient in this gutsy cauliflower lentil salad recipe.
Thanks for the delicious recipe Arum!
Roasted Cauliflower, Lentil Salad
Ingredients:
Lentils:
Roasted cauliflower:
- 1 small cauliflower
- 1 red onion, peeled and trimmed
- Olive oil
- Sea salt flakes
- 1 tbs cumin seeds
Pickling liquid:
- ½ cup white vinegar
- ½ tbs salt
- ½ tbs sugar
Dressing:
- 2 tbs reserved cooking liquid from the lentils
- 1 tsp Box Grove Verjuice *
- 2tbs olive oil
- Salt to taste
Spiced yoghurt:
- 100g plain yoghurt
- 1 tsp ground cumin
- 1 tsp lemon juice
- Salt to taste
Greens:
- Handful baby spinach leaves, washed
- Handful coriander leaves, washed and picked
Method:
Preheat the oven to 220 degrees.
For the lentils, heat the vegetable stock in a medium saucepan. Once boiling, add the lentils. Bring back up to a simmer, and cook for 20-25 mins until tender. Drain the lentils, reserving the cooking liquid for the dressing, and keep the lentils warm until needed.
Meanwhile, prepare the roasted cauliflower and red onion. Trim the cauliflower, reserving the smaller leaves - these have fantastic flavour and are well worth keeping to include in the salad. Cut the head into individual florets, and reserve 4-5 for the pickled cauliflower. Cut each red onion into thick wedges. Toss the remaining cauliflower and the onion wedges in the olive oil and place on a large baking tray. Season well with salt, and scatter over the cumin seeds. Place in the hot oven to roast for 20-30 minutes until just tender when pricked with a sharp knife - they should have gone really dark around the edges. Remove from the oven and keep warm until needed.
To make the pickled cauliflower, place the vinegar, sugar, salt and ¼ cup water in a small saucepan. Heat until the sugar and salt dissolves, then remove from the heat. Meanwhile, slice the reserved cauliflower florets as thinly as possible - a mandoline is ideal, or a very sharp knife - and add to the warm pickling liquid. Leave for 20 mins to infuse, then drain well.
To make the dressing, whisk all the ingredients together well in a bowl and season to taste with salt and more lemon juice.
To make the spiced yoghurt, mix the yoghurt, cumin and lemon juice together, and season well with salt. Don’t overmix, otherwise the yoghurt will thin too much - it should be the consistency of cream.
To combine the salad, mix the dressing with the warm lentils and combine well. Add the roasted cauliflower and onion, the pickled cauliflower, the baby spinach, any reserved cauliflower leaves and the coriander leaves, and loosely combine. Drizzle with the spiced yoghurt to serve.
*If you can't find Wits End Humble Hurricane Lentils, substitute with good quality puy lentils. Likewise with Box Grove Vineyard Verjuice, substitute with another excellent quality verjuice (also known as verjus).
Recipe courtesy of Arum Nixon.
As seen in our October/November 2017 mini zine found inside the Discovery Box:
Experience your very own Discovery Box now and discover the #tasteoflocal.
