Recipe: Chermoula cauliflower galette

A recipe from Mildred's new cookbook Mildreds Easy Vegan

A simple but beautiful centrepiece, this galette is a great way to celebrate cauliflower. The recipe will work with one medium to large cauliflower, but if you have a couple of different types, that’s even better. From purple and golden to the psychedelic romanesco, cauliflowers are available in many beautiful variations, and this zesty Middle Eastern marinade brings out the best in all of them.

Serves 4-6

Ingredients

• 500g cauliflower florets
• 300g shop-bought shortcrust pastry
• Plain flour, for dusting
• 70g vegan feta-style cheese, crumbled
• Plant-based cream, for brushing
• Chopped pistachios, to garnish

For the chermoula marinade

• ½ bunch coriander, chopped
• 1tsp freshly chopped oregano leaves
• 20g preserved lemon, deseeded and roughly chopped
• 2 garlic cloves
• 5½tbs olive oil
• 1tsp salt
• ½tsp ground turmeric
• ½tbs caster sugar

Method

Preheat the oven to 180°C/160°C fan. To make the chermoula marinade, put all the ingredients except the sugar in a blender or food processor and blend in bursts, then stir in the sugar until it dissolves. If you prefer, you can use a stick blender or do it by hand. Simply chop the herbs, preserved lemon and garlic to a fine, even consistency and combine with the remaining chermoula ingredients to form a chunky paste.

Arrange the cauliflower florets on a roasting tray. Pour over the marinade and toss to coat, then roast for 8-10 minutes until starting to go golden.

Meanwhile, roll out the pastry on a large piece of baking parchment to form an even circle, 3mm thick, dusting with flour as necessary. Prick the middle of the pastry with a fork a few times.

Arrange half of the roasted cauliflower in a circle on the pastry, leaving a border of about 5cm of pastry around the edges. Sprinkle over the vegan feta, then arrange the rest of the cauliflower on top.

Fold up the edges of the pastry around the cauliflower and brush with the plant-based cream.

Bake the galette for 25-30 minutes until golden and firm. Garnish with the pistachios and serve.

Chef’s tip

There are lots of good-quality ready-made chermoula pastes and dressings available to buy. If you wish to use one of these in place of the homemade marinade to save time, simply loosen it up a with a little olive oil.