Cauliflower and Chickpea Salad with Chimichurri

 
 
 
 

This cauliflower chickpea salad with chimichurri is a result of so many things: our friend Alison's chimichurri-with-a-fork, Eden Grinshpan's recent roasted cauliflower on Instagram, and a love for all things briny. When cooking for ourselves, we sometimes follow recipes, but most often we are riffing on ideas that pop into our heads as we rummage through the fridge. Then it's bloop, glug, sprinkle, taste, repeat. Going into filming this, the recipe and measurements were still in Ju's head. She had made it several times using the strategy above but had not yet put pen to paper. This rambling is important context for this video you're about to watch. That lack of recipe structure, paired with some level of stay-at-home-induced-energy, meant for a an outcome that requires preface. (Don't worry, Dak edited out over an hour of chit chat, plus a bit about her GF's lint roller obsession—what can we say, we love to chat!). So we forgot to introduce the recipe, we forgot to mention that we were chopping cauliflower and mostly we forgot that we were filming and weren't just hanging out.

For this recipe, roast the cauliflower in olive oil, salt and pepper, in one layer until until it's crispy in some places and soft (with a bite) in others. This gets tossed with crisped chickpeas and a chimichurri of parsley, cilantro, vinegar, lemon, capers and salt. It's beautifully briny, tangy and salty in all the right places. We hope you love it as much as we do. — Dak and Ju

 

Ingredients

  • 1 medium cauliflower or 1/2 of a large one

  • 1 can of rinsed and drained chickpeas (you can also cook these yourself if you have them on hand!)

  • Olive oil

  • Salt, to taste

  • Fresh pepper, to taste

  • About 1/4 c fresh dill

  • Fresh lemon (optional)

  • finishing salt

For the chimichurri:

  • About 1/2 cup flat leaf parsley, finely chopped

  • About 1/2 cup cilantro, finely chopped

  • 1 clove garlic, finely minced

  • 2 tsp red wine vinegar (or what you have on hand!)

  • 1 Tbsp capers, roughly chopped

  • 1 tsp salt plus more to taste

  • 4 Tbsp olive oil, plus more to reach desired sauce consistency

 

Instructions

  1. Preheat your oven to 425 degrees. Wash and remove the fibrous end of the cauliflower stem. Cut the cauliflower into bite sized pieces, included the rest of the stem you did not trim off and any leaves that still might be attached. Place the cauliflower and stems onto a baking sheet or cast iron, and drizzle with olive oil to coat, a generous pinch of salt and plenty of fresh pepper. Arrange the pieces on your baking sheet or cast iron, ensuring they are mostly in one layer. When the oven is up to temperature, place the cauliflower in and cook for about 20 minutes, checking for doneness then. You’re looking for your cauliflower to be sizzling, deeply browned in some spots, crispy in others and some just nicely caramelized. Once done, remove from oven and set aside.

  2. While you cauliflower is cooking, rinse and drain your chickpeas — leave them in a colander in the sink while you prepare your chimichurri.

  3. For the chimichurri, add your chopped parsley, cilantro, garlic, vinegar and olive oil in a bowl. Using a fork, vigorously stir the mixture to begin to break up the herbs, releasing their juice and flavor. Add the salt and chopped capers and stir. At this point, you should have a loose and oily sauce— depending on how finely you chopped your herbs your sauce may be a little chunkier and that’s fine! This chimichurri is basically a ‘choose your own adventure’ sauce. Taste and adjust salt as needed.

  4. In a different pan, heat over medium and add a Tbsp or so of olive oil. Add in your drained chickpeas and a pinch of salt. Allow the chickpeas to sizzle on the pan for several minutes before you stir them and let them sizzle again— by the end your chickpeas should have a little crispy edge to them and have a tiny bit of toothy bite.

  5. In a large bowl, place your cooked cauliflower, sizzled chickpeas and about 3 tbsps of chimichurri. Stir, adding more chimichurri as you wish. Add a couple big pinches of finishing salt, the fresh dill and an obscene amount of freshly cracked pepper. If you desire, squeeze half of a lemon over the top and give the salad one final stir. Taste and adjust seasonings to your preferences, as always.

Salad serves about 4; Makes about 1 cup chimichurri