I love bringing home some of the food products from the shop to try. When we’re chatting to customers in the shop it’s important for us to be able to tell people about the products and to give them suggestions of how they might use them so it’s an important job, eating delicious foods for supper. It simply has to be done.
One of the more intriguing products in the shop is this Cucumber vinegar from Nicolas Vahe. It’s a vinegar combined with cucumber pulp and is great for dressing fresh, zingy salads. My latest invention is a fresh pickled Cauliflower salad.
Recipe
Ingredients
- 1 Romanesco Cauliflower
- 1 small red onion
- 2 large pinches of sea salt flakes (to taste, maybe a little more)
- 200ml Nicolas Vahe cucumber vinegar
- 200ml Nicolas Vahe cold pressed rapeseed oil
- 50g Pumpkin seeds
Method
This recipe is all about the veg prep as the onion and cauliflower cure in the vinegar, salt and oil. Food can be about how the flavours and mouth feel combine and so cutting the cauliflower thinly and dicing the red onion finely is a key to this recipe tasting right. Use a very sharp knife. Break the cauliflower apart into florets and slice them very finely. This will produce some thin, beautiful slices that look like miniature trees as well as a “crumb” of small bits of cauliflower. In a bowl combine these with three quarters of the vinegar, salt and oil.
Finely dice the onion by cutting. Half it first then cut thin slices length ways and then cut thin slices again at 90 degrees to the original slices producing a very fine diced onion. Place in another bowl and add the rest of the salt, vinegar and oil to this.
Cover both bowls and keep in the fridge over night or for 3-4 hours. The salt and vinegar will softer the vegetables and make a fresh “pickle” of them.
Before serving, toast the pumpkin seeds in a dry pan. Either plate individually by placing the cauliflower on the plate and sprinkling over to the onion and pumpkin seeds, or toss the onion and cauliflower together and serve in a bowl with the pumpkin seeds sprinkled on top
Notes
The cucumber vinegar is softened and sweetened a little by the cucumber pulp in it. If you’re making this with a different vinegar then taste and see if you need to add a little sugar or use a little less vinegar. It is a sharp and salty tasting “salad” but too much strong vinegar would make it too sharp. As well as the pumpkin seeds, a little toasted nigella seeds or a few mustard seeds popped in oil (used sparingly) could be alternatives and would give a slightly more Indian inspired taste to the dish.