A perfect, easy winter salad

Are you in a salad rut? Well, step away from the usual tomatoes, lettuce and cucumber and embrace something a little different. 

I feel like salad often gets a bad rap because people associate it with sad diet food that lacks flavor. But salad is all about layering fresh ingredients. It’s the best way to utilize the abundance of delicious winter produce we have at this time of year. The key to putting together a great salad is to get the freshest ingredients you can and not fiddle with them too much.

This takes me to my belief that cauliflower is one of the most underrated vegetables because it can be cooked in a variety of different ways — it’s the perfect vehicle for different flavors. It works baked with cheese, it can go in curry or soup, or be sautéed and added to pasta. As a child, my Italian neighbors would batter it and fry it into fritters.

Here I have adapted a recipe from Sami Tamimi and Yotam Ottolenghi which comes together to be a delicious combination of salt, sweet, acid and crunch. The roasted salty cauliflower, and sour pomegranates, dressed with cinnamon, honey and tangy vinegar is simple and healthy. It works as either a quick lunch on its own or can be served as a side to meat or fish.

Serves 2

Cooking time: 45 mins

850g cauliflower cut into bite-sized florets (you can also make extra and keep it in the fridge)

1 bunch flat-leaf parsley (stems removed)

2 medium sticks of celery, cut into thin chunks, leaves removed

70g raw almonds

1 teaspoon cinnamon

1 teaspoon allspice

½ pomegranate, seeds only

sea salt

black pepper

70g soft goat cheese (optional)

Dressing

2 tablespoons red wine vinegar

2 teaspoons honey

6 tablespoons olive oil

Turn your oven to 210 degrees Celsius and while it’s warming up cut the cauliflower into small bite-sized florets and put them in a bowl. Add a teaspoon of sea salt, a teaspoon of pepper and 4tbps of the olive oil. Using your hands, massage the oil and seasoning into the cauliflower until well coated.

Spread the cauliflower onto a tray or a large baking dish lined with foil, making sure it has plenty of room to fit in one layer and bake for 30 minutes or until golden. Make sure to shake the tray every now and then so that both sides of the cauliflower turn golden brown. You want to keep an eye on them so that they don’t burn and go black. Once they are done set aside to cool off. Put the almonds in the oven on a tray and bake for 5 minutes or until they start to turn a darker brown. Then set aside and cool. Once they are cool use a rolling pin or the heavy end of a knife to bash the almonds up a bit until they are roughly broken apart.

In a cup, mix the vinegar, 2tbps of oil, honey and salt together until the honey dissolves. Take the parsley and rip off the leaves from the stems with your hands and put into a bowl. Add the almonds, pomegranate seeds, cooled cauliflower, chopped celery, allspice, cinnamon and dressing and mix together with your hands. Serve on plates, and if using the goat cheese dot over the salad.

Secrets for making this recipe work

Produce: When buying your cauliflower, make sure that its bright white, with green leaves attached to the sides and that the florets are still tightly attached to the stems. This means the cauliflower is fresh — if it’s brown-tinged and starting to hang off the stems, it's getting old. When you get it home don’t submerge it in water, rather wipe it down with a damp kitchen cloth and then dry it well so that it will be able to crisp when roasted.

You want to buy your pomegranates when they are a vivid reddish color, with smooth skin and as few bruises on them as possible so they are just ripe and crunchy. Try to avoid buying pre-cut fruit where the seeds are already cut from the skin because these can harbor a lot of bacteria.

With the parsley and celery, try to buy these as close to when you will use them as possible so they are crisp and instead of submerging them in water to wash, quickly rinse under a tap and then wrap in a tea towel to dry, or if you have a salad spinner, use that for faster drying. Making sure everything is dry will make for a crisp salad, where the dressing will be able to cling to all the ingredients. As for the leftover parsley stems, keep these in the fridge to use for making stock.

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