A side-salad or a main dish? I suppose it ultimately depends on the size of the portion you serve and what you serve it with. As you can follow this recipe using hot or cold cauliflower, the serving temperature of the final dish may also have some bearing on your guests' perception of its status.
A word or two about tarragon. Like parsley, it is much better used fresh than dried. In fact, I would say that in the case of tarragon, it's probably even more important to try to find it fresh, as the dried stuff really is a far inferior recipe ingredient. Unfortunately, unless you grow it yourself, fresh tarragon is rather hard to come by and you might have no other choice but to resort to dried. In that case you'll probably be left wondering what all the fuss was about, as it won't have added much to the dish. The best thing might be to forget I mentioned it and just use the parsley and spring onions. Your guests won't start shouting, 'Hey! Where's the tarragon? This is a rip-off!'. If they do, don't invite them again.
Ingredients
1 cauliflower
A handful of shelled walnuts
2 cloves of garlic
A few black peppercorns
4 or 5 tablespoons of sour cream
A few springs of fresh parsley and tarragon
1 or 2 spring onions
Salt
Cut the cauliflower into florets and put them in a pot with 3 or 4 cm of water. Sprinkle over a little salt, put a lid tightly on the pot and steam for 10 to 20 minutes, until the florets are tender but not breaking up. When ready, drain and leave to cool or use immediately.
Crush the peppercorns using a pestle and mortar, then add the walnuts and pound them until they are broken up finely, but stop before they begin to form a paste. Mix the ground nuts with the sour cream, chopped garlic and herbs and maybe a little more salt.
If you want to get all arty about presentation, this dish looks
great served cold on a shallow plate, trimmed with lettuce leaves and slices
of fresh tomatoes. The hot version can be brightened up with sticks of boiled
carrot and raw red pepper and whole boiled green beans. If it's going to be
your main dish, how about serving some boiled new potatoes as an accompaniment?
more cauliflower recipes
more salad recipes
more nut recipes