Spicy cauliflower steak with roasted pepper and smoky puree

What a great way to use cauliflower. A cauliflower steak. It goes with so many different flavours and accompaniments. You can complete make this dish your own!

Estimated reading time: 4 minutes

🥘 Main ingredients

• cauliflower
• red bell pepper (paprika)
• garlic
• potatoes
• dairy-free milk
• lapsang tea-leaves
• olive oil
• seasalt
• cayenne pepper flakes
• salad leaves
• sunflower seeds
• chives

I have to be honest, I was never a big fan of the cauliflower steak. I did it once during my diploma course and I didn't really like it. But there I grilled the cauliflower. So this time I tried roasting it with lots of added flavour, and I was so pleasantly surprised. This became one of my favourite ways to enjoy cauliflower!

Cauliflower is a very versatile vegetable and can be used with many different flavours. It is naturally slightly nutty. Check out my other cauliflower dishes, like; the vegan Alfredo sauce to go with pasta. Or the roasted aubergine with cauliflower rice.

In this particular dish I choose to go with spicy flavours. Hot spices work well with cauliflower.

🥗 A well balanced & complete dish

I chose to accompany the spicy cauliflower steaks with roasted paprika. The combination of roasted red bell pepper and roasted garlic works wonders and is very much used in Spain. I use it often just as a salad, a side dish, or even just on a piece of toast.

But to make this a full fulfilling dish, it needed a bit more...

So I made a potato puree, but not just an ordinary one. I decided to make it a bit more interesting by using a very light smokiness. Personally I like lapsang tea leaves because they give a very nice delicate flavour, but you could use liquid smoke, or smoky salt instead.

I only used a very little amount of tea leaves, as I didn't want to overpower the whole dish (which is easy done) . It worked like magic together with the other ingredients!

Finishing with a bit of nutty crunch from the sunflower seeds, and some colour from the chives. Et Voila! An interesting full flavoured combination.

💭 Tips and suggestions

Another one that I recently did was very interesting and delicious. I had some left over breadcrumbs and ground hazelnut mix. So halfway through the roasting process I topped one side of the cauliflower with this mixture. The delicate hazelnut flavour and the slightly crunchy texture made it again very different. Here I enjoyed it with some roasted potatoes and carrot & coriander mash. YUM!

Or what about this option. I breaded the cauliflower steak with added spices and nutritional yeast. I roasted the steak while regularly brushing olive oil on the steak this made the cauliflower go super crunchy. Served with vegetable noodles. A true delish!

🍷 Beverage suggestions

Wow! A lot of flavours going on in this dish. I think that this dish can handle quiet a 'bold' wine. Normally I would pair roasted red bell pepper and roasted garlic, more with a very aromatic white (gewurztraminer). But because of the spicy cauliflower and the puree, I believe that this dish would be better suitable to a red wine. Like a bold Italian Pinot nero.

I hope you will enjoy this winner dish. Great combi's and great flavours. Let me know what you think of it. And don't forget to add @haricoco1 to your instagram post if you use this recipe.

📋 Recipe

Spicy Cauliflower steak with roasted paprika and smoky puree

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Prep Time: 15 minutes

Cook Time: 1 hour

Total Time: 1 hour 15 minutes

Servings: 2

Calories: 499.2kcal

Ingredients

• 2 slices 1,5cm / 0.6 inches taken from the middle of a large cauliflower
• 1 red bell pepper paprika
• 6 cloves of garlic whole
• 4 small potatoes
• 100 ml ½ cup dairy-free milk
• ½ teaspoon lapsang tea-leaves
• 2 tablespoon olive oil
• 1 tablespoon coarse seasalt
• ¾ teaspoon cayenne pepper flakes
• handful of salad leaves
• 1 tablespoon toasted sunflower seeds
• 1 tablespoon chives chopped

Instructions

• Pre-heat the oven to 180C / 356F.
• Roast the red bell pepper and the cloves of garlic, this will take approx. 40 min.
• Meanwhile prepare your cauliflower steaks by rubbing the mixture of olive oil, coarse sea salt and cayenne pepper on them. Use a brush to really get the mixture into the florets.
• Put the cauliflower steaks in the oven. You don't have to wait till the red pepper and garlic is ready, you can put them in about 10 minutes before they are ready. The Cauliflower will need about 25 - 30 minutes to roast, turn over once.
• Boil the potatoes in salted water until cooked (approx. 15 - 20 minutes), drain and mash.
• Meanwhile warm the dairy free milk in a small pot, and add the lapsang tea leaves. Let the tea leaves infuse 15 minutes in the warm (not hot) milk.
• After 15 minutes sieve the leaves out of the milk, add the milk to your mashed potatoes to make it into a puree.
• De-skin the roasted bell pepper, and slice the meat of the pepper into small stripes.
• De-skin the roasted garlic
• Assemble your plate with some of the salad leaves, put the nicely brown roasted spicy cauliflower on top. Take a good spoonful of the roasted red bell pepper stripes, and drizzle them on top together with some roasted garlic cloves. A ladle of the delicate smoky potato puree, and scatter some toasted sunflower seeds, and chives on top.

Notes

If you like your potato puree to be more smoky, you can add more lapsang leaves. I personally think this dish works better with a very light delicate smokiness.

I left the skin of the potato on, simply because I like it. But of course you can peel your potatoes if that is preferred, or necessary.

For the dairy free milk it is best to use a milk which is not strongly flavoured.

 

Nutrition

Serving: 1g | Calories: 499.2kcal | Carbohydrates: 74.91g | Protein: 12.62g | Fat: 18.55g | Saturated Fat: 3.22g | Cholesterol: 5.16mg | Sodium: 59.91mg | Fiber: 12.8g | Sugar: 9.92g | Vitamin A: 90.77IU | Vitamin C: 170.53mg | Calcium: 17.71mg | Iron: 27.65mg

Tried this recipe?Let us know how it was!