Coronation Cauliflower Salad

My favorite vegetable is so misunderstood. If you still don't love cauliflower, read on.

In Italy, the Italians treat cauliflower with much love and respect, adding it to pastas, roasting it and topping it with crispy breadcrumbs, anchovies, capers or raisins.

Here in the states, we don't quite understand the beauty of cauliflower. I have memories of choking on boiled large pieces of blandness or eating it served with a gross cheese sauce from the package. Scary stuff.

I have never been a fan of raw cauliflower, especially when I see it on a crudite platter, waiting for the sour cream onion dip to mask it. It's so hard and large, I will take a pass.

But for some reason I was attracted to this recipe. I think because when I first clicked in, it looked like egg salad in the photo, but when I read on, it was actually a version of "Coronation Chicken Salad", a chicken salad made with a curry based mayonnaise cream sauce created for Queen Elizabeth's Coronation in 1953. (Here is the original recipe if you are interested).



This was so simple, and I really loved it. I used Hellman's Real Mayo, but the author used her homemade egg based silky smooth gorgeous mayonnaise, which I am sure made it even better.

I hope you try it.

Coronation Cauliflower Salad (from the beautiful vegetarian blog Stone Soup):

1/2 head of cauliflower
1 tsp of curry powder
6 tbsp of good quality mayonnaise (preferably homemade)
squeeze of fresh lemon juice
fleur de sel or Maldon salt
a few grinds of black pepper
handful of whole almonds, toasted
handful of fresh cilantro leaves

The only time consuming thing here is cutting your cauliflower florets into tiny bite size pieces. The author wants you to cut them no bigger than a grape. You can also use the stems of the florets, just chop them fine.



In a large bowl, add your mayo with the curry powder and mix together. Thin the dressing out with some lemon juice.

Add the little tiny white trees (cauliflower) and the toasted almonds (I chopped mine for smaller bites). Mix and season with salt & pepper. Taste and adjust seasonings.

Add chopped fresh cilantro for garnish (don't substitute parsley, the cilantro with the curry mayo makes this dish what it is).



Yum. So good, I didn't even miss the hard boiled eggs!

Enjoy!

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