Cauliflower salad with miso dressing and pistachio pesto
This salad is a unique combination of textures, flavours and colours. Feel free to double up on the pistachio pesto and store it in a sterilised jar in the fridge; it’ll keep for a week and works really well stirred into pasta or alongside steamed vegetables or fish.
Prep
30 min
Cook
45 min
Serving size
4-6
Ingredients
1 cauliflower (1kg), tough leaves and stem removed, broken into florets, soft leaves and core chopped into 5cm pieces
2 tsp vegetable oil
½ granny smith apple, core removed, thinly sliced into half moons
1 red chicory, sliced at an angle into ½ cm strips (60g)
1 spring onion, trimmed and thinly sliced (15g)
Apple and Miso dressing:
250ml apple juice, freshly squeezed, not from concentrate
25g white miso
1½ tsp lime juice
70ml vegetable oil
Pistachio pesto:
50g pistachios, toasted
½ tsp szechuan peppercorns
1 tbsp nori flakes
¾ tsp Aleppo chilli flakes
40g parsley leaves, roughly chopped
3 spring onions, trimmed and thinly sliced (45g)
70ml vegetable oil
20 ml apple juice, freshly squeezed, not from concentrate
1 tsp lime zest
Fine sea salt and black pepper
Method
1. Make the dressing by whisking together the juice and miso in a small saucepan. Bring to a boil over a high heat then turn down to medium-high and simmer for 12 minutes, whisking frequently, until the mix is deeply brown and syrupy (about ¼ of its initial volume). Set aside to cool completely then stir in the lime juice and ⅛ teaspoon of salt. Finally, slowly pour in the oil, whisking continuously, to make a silky dressing.
2. Preheat the oven to 240C fan and line a large roasting tray with parchment paper. Add the cauliflower, 2 teaspoons of oil, 100ml of the dressing, ¼ teaspoon salt and toss well to coat. Roast for 20 minutes, turning once, until charred and with a slight bite. Set aside to cool.
3. Meanwhile, add all the pistachios, szechuan peppercorns, nori, Aleppo and ¼ teaspoon salt to a food processor and pulse until the pistachios are lentil-sized. Remove one tablespoon of this and reserve for later. Add the parsley and spring onions to the food processor and pulse to combine. Add the oil, apple juice, zest and ⅛ tsp salt and pulse a few times to form a coarse pesto.
4. In a large mixing bowl, add the cooled cauliflower, sliced apple, chicory, spring onion, remaining dressing and the pesto and toss to coat nicely. Arrange on a large platter and scatter over the reserved pistachio mixture.