Recipe: Roasted Cauliflower with Spiced Butter Rice
Delicious and easy One-Pot Vege Roast
It’s such a pleasure making and eating this dish. Za’atar, the Middle Eastern spice mix of thyme, oregano, marjoram, toasted sesame seeds and sumac provides the base of flavour, coating the vegetables and infusing pan juices and oil. At the end of roasting, you’ll find a delicious zingy sauce to spoon over soft juicy roasted tomatoes, peppers, garlic bulbs and buttery rice.
Roasting Cauliflower
Texture and flavour of roasted cauliflower changes according to how small or large it’s cut and how long it has roasted in the oven. Some people like to divide an entire head into 4 pieces and roast until soft, this will take approximately 1 hour. For faster results when chopped into smaller florets and roasted at higher heat, cauliflower begins to caramelize and develop a more nutty flavor and firmer texture.
Infused chilli oil
A generous amount of olive oil is added to the tray so the spices can infuse and create a delicious chilli oil for basting the cauliflower, peppers and rice.
Roasted Cauliflower with Spiced Butter Rice
Ingredients
- 1 whole cauliflower
- 1 red pepper
- 1 yellow pepper
- 2 large tomatoes
- 8 large garlic bulbs unpeeled
- 2 white onions
- 150 ml olive oil
- 1 Tbsp oregano preferably Mexican oregano if possible
- 1 Tbsp smoked paprika
- 2 tsp za'atar
- 2 tsp sumac
- 2 tsp cumin
- Salt
- 170 g Rice
- 1 large knob butter
- 3/4 tsp za'atar
- 50 g flaked almonds
Instructions
- Preheat oven to 180°C.
- Trim green ends off cauliflower head, leaving the stem intact. Chop head into 6 wedges.
- Slice peppers in half lengthways, remove stem, and clean inside of seeds and additional soft white skin areas. Cut peppers again in half lengthways so you end up with 4 slices per pepper.
- Peel onions and cut in half.
- Cut tomatoes in half.
- Combine olive oil, za'atar, oregano, sumac, smoked paprika and cumin.
- Spread cauliflower wedges, peppers, tomatoes, onion and garlic bulbs evenly over a large roasting tray. Pour over oil and using your hands gently rub into vegetables.
- Transfer to the oven and roast for 50 - 60 minutes or until vegetables are charred and juicy.
- Meanwhile, cook rice in salted water.
- Using a dry frying pan, lightly toasted almond flakes along with 3/4 tsp za'atar.
- Stir butter through hot rice, followed by toasted almonds. Cover and keep warm.
- Remove roasted cauliflower from the oven. Serve vegetables alongside butter almond rice. To finish, spoon spicey chilli oil from the bottom of the roasting tray over vegetables and rice.
