Roasted Cauliflower Chickpea Dinner
This satisfying, weeknight-quick vegetarian meal belongs in your rotation
Equipment
- 2 baking dishes or hotel pans about 12x17, oiled
Ingredients
- 1 small cauliflower, about 1 pound (see Kitchen Notes)
- 1 medium onion, cut into coarse chunks
- 2 15-ounce cans chickpeas, drained and rinsed
- olive oil
- 2 tablespoons sweet Hungarian paprika (see Kitchen Notes regarding spices)
- 1 - 2 teaspoons shichimi togarashi (see Kitchen Notes)
Instructions
- Preheat oven to 400ºF. Break up the cauliflower into smallish chunks—cut off the stems and use them for another purpose (sliced thin, this makes a nice snack) or put it in your compost pile, I am not judging.
- Put the cauliflower, the cut up onion and the drained chickpeas in a big bowl. Drizzle with olive oil and toss everything with your hands until the oil coats everything. Make sure everything is lightly oily. Then sprinkle on the paprika and shichimi togarashi, and toss again so everything is uniformly spiced.
- Next, evenly scatter everything on your oiled baking sheets. Put in the heated oven. Position the pans on two different racks, in the center, with adequate space between for hot air to circulate. Set a timer for 12 minutes.
- When the timer goes off, slide the pans out, stir everything, then put them back in the oven, reversing their locations on the racks (top pan to lower rack). Set the timer for another 12 minutes.
- When the timer goes off again, you should be seeing signs that things are progressing well. You may need to stir everything and put it back in the oven for another ride, but at this point keep an eye on things so the veg doesn’t overbake. You want the cauliflower to be soft, to yield to a fork and be turning golden; the chickpeas to be crisp on the outside and soft inside; and the onion to be soft and starting to caramelize. If the onion gets scarily dark, don’t worry—pay attention to the cauliflower and the chickpeas. That onion is still going to taste great.
- When everything is done, take it out of the oven. It is ready to go! Serve with a green salad if you like, or some sliced tomatoes on the side.
Kitchen Notes
The cauliflower. You can also use frozen cauliflower—just nuke it in the microwave for a minute as a first step.
Variation of spices species. Laurel usually fixes this with chili powder, cumin and a bit of paprika. Other interesting spices to try: lemon pepper seasoning, cayenne, garam masala, minced fresh ginger and fresh jalapeno. You can garnish at the end with fresh chives, fresh coriander, and/or fresh tomato. Little grape tomatoes, cut in half, would be a delightful finish. PS, if you use shichimi togarashi or a packaged masala, don’t add salt until you taste at the end—many spice blends are already salted.
Shichimi togarashi. This Japanese spice blend of chili flakes, seaweed and sesame seeds is great for adding umami and a little heat to dishes. You can substitute a mix of chili powder or flakes, sesame seeds and salt.
The temperature. The first time I made this, I set the oven at 350ºF. That was not enough. You want 400ºF, not just for faster cooking, but to caramelize the onions.
Liz’s Crockery Corner, unsolved mystery edition. This lovely footed vegetable tureen is a puzzle to me. It is unmarked, meaning I have no concrete proof of who made it or how old it is. Every time I try to research it, I come up with new confusion. (1) it was made in England in the 1870s. (2) it was made in France in the 1870s. (3) It was made in France in the 1920s or the 1930s. There are plenty of tureens of exactly this shape to support all these hypotheses. I think a French origin is kinda more likely, if only because by the 1870s, English law adamantly required all English-made pottery to be clearly labeled—because it was highly coveted in the English-speaking global marketplace. Lots of potteries in other countries, in fact, chose not to label their products in hopes of passing as English. The weird thing about ascribing this to a French maker (possibly Saint-Auban? Gien Terre de Fer?), though, is that most French ceramics also have some sort of label. So, geez folks, I got nothing. But isn't it pretty?
Liz’s Crockery Corner, unsolved mystery edition. This lovely footed vegetable tureen is a puzzle to me. It is unmarked, meaning I have no concrete proof of who made it or how old it is. Every time I try to research it, I come up with new confusion. (1) it was made in England in the 1870s. (2) it was made in France in the 1870s. (3) It was made in France in the 1920s or the 1930s. There are plenty of tureens of exactly this shape to support all these hypotheses. I think a French origin is kinda more likely, if only because by the 1870s, English law adamantly required all English-made pottery to be clearly labeled—because it was highly coveted in the English-speaking global marketplace. Lots of potteries in other countries, in fact, chose not to label their products in hopes of passing as English. The weird thing about ascribing this to a French maker (possibly Saint-Auban? Gien Terre de Fer?), though, is that most French ceramics also have some sort of label. So, geez folks, I got nothing. But isn't it pretty?