Whole Roasted Cauliflower Takoyaki Style-Ahead of the Game

So, you drew the short straw, didn’t you?  Yep, the proverbial boring Thanksgiving dish.  Vegetables, sheesh.  Auntie has drawn dessert, ugh, means lime green jello mold with pineapple.  Which is not dessert actually but it’s ok, she’s your Aunt.

Could be worse, you could have drawn salad.  Really, who goes for salad first on Thanksgiving?  Sure I take the customary 2 lettuce leaves and a crouton to make my plate look balanced.  It’s all for show I don’t actually eat it.  At least we can salvage the veggie dilemma.

I am here to make you the belle of the ball, a prince among paupers.  Along the way, we are demystifying the twenty-dollar whole roasted cauliflower.  Yeah, fess up, you have paid that much and didn’t even blink an eye when you did.

You will never order whole roasted cauliflower again.

Well, at the least, you won’t pay twenty bucks for it.

Start with a nice looking head of cauliflower,  Wash it, trim off the outer leaves, (here is my hack) core the center stem with a melon baller if you have one. If not use a paring knife.  Coring shortens cooking time.

Slather the cauliflower top and bottom with olive oil.  I use a squirt bottle, a brush would work also.  Season with salt and pepper, again, top and bottom.  Place on a parchment or foil-lined baking sheet.

That’s it.  Your work is done.  Your oven does the rest of the heavy-lifting. Roast for about 45-50 minutes.  Pierce it with a knife, if it goes through fairly easy, it’s done.  Out comes a beautiful toasty, crispy edged, soft- centered, delicious, cauliflower canvas, ready to be painted.

You can top your cauliflower with just about anything.  I have served it with roasted tomatoes, or brushed with a garlic and herb butter, it’s your cauliflower, go crazy.

My latest razzle dazzle topping was inspired by a recipe I found in a little book called Emily the Cookbook. Emily is a pizza joint in Brooklyn that is on my bucket list of places to try.  They serve a roasted broccoli dish that is based on the toppings for Takoyaki, a popular Japanese seafood-filled round pancake.  So simple, yet so good.  In fact, it’s so simple I’m using pics to show you how to make it.

All you need is Okonomi Sauce (preferred) or Tonkatsu Sauce (think Worchestershire/Steak Sauce but better), Kewpie Mayonnaise (Japanese mayo), Bonita Flakes (fish flakes) and green onions.

Squirt a bunch of the mayo (it even comes in a squirt bottle-how easy is that?) all over the top.

Then squirt a bunch of Okonomi Sauce on top.

Finish with a flurry of bonita flakes, green onions and some sesame seeds if you like. Want to keep it vegetarian? Instead of bonita flakes,  TJ’s has a fish-free furikake.

That’s it.  Easy and Monster tasty!