Oven-Baked Crisp Cauliflower

D loves cauliflowers, as I’ve already mentioned here. I tend to pick it up whenever I come across a fresh one in the market. And apart from D’s trademark Aloo-Gobi dry, which he makes to perfection, I like try out other different varieties. A pulav with Gobi was great - got some messages from friends who tried it and liked; A starter, Gobi 65 was awesome too, but of course involves a bit of work and also more oil. I do add these little florets along with other veggies in many other items as well, but wanted something easy and with little effort. And of course with lesser oil too. Something using the oven to do the time consuming job??

A quick search yielded me a lot of recipes for oven roasted cauliflower and I figured it is a very adaptable recipe. One can play around with the ingredients as much as one wants, to get different varieties… And here’s what I tried. I made it twice in two weeks and do check the notes for variations.

The pics do not do any justice to the dish, I know - can’t help much till the Sun decides to grace us here in Scandinavia!

Happy Baking!!

Oven Roasted Cauliflower

Preparation Time: 10 min

Baking Time: ~30 min

Serves: 4

Ingredients:

Cauliflower - 1 medium, cut into medium size florets

Oil - 1/4 Cup; I use olive oil (See Notes)

Cornflour - 1-2 Tbsp

Besan / Chickpea flour - 1 Tbsp (Optional)

Red Chili Powder - 1 tsp

Jeera / Cumin powder - 1/4 tsp

Turmeric Powder - 1/4 tsp

Hing / Asafetida - 1/4 tsp

Salt - As per taste

Method:

• Preheat the oven at 200 deg C. Line and grease a big baking tray.
• Cut the cauliflower into medium size florets and clean it by soaking in a mixture of warm water and salt.
• In a bowl combine all dry other ingredients and whisk well.
• In a large bowl, take cauliflower florets and pour oil over it, mixing well
• Now add the dry mixture over the cauliflower while tossing it well, to coat all the cauliflower pieces well with the mixture.
• Spread it evenly on a greased baking sheet.
• Roast the cauliflower for 25 minutes, tossing it once around 15 minutes.
• To get a crispy texture, turn the oven switch to broil mode for 3-5 minutes, again tossing once in between.

Notes:

• Using this method, a bunch of varieties can be prepared, with a mix of different herbs and spices and varying the amount of flour.
• I once tried using a bit more of besan and using a bit of yogurt as well to make crispier fritters. The additional spice used was garam masala.
• Quantity of oil can be reduced by using a bit of yogurt
• Can try out with Italian herbs as well.

This post is for the Bake-A-Thon event by Champa. These are the other co-bloggers baking with me... 
Champa, Srivalli Jetti, Priya Suresh, Veena Krishna Kumar and Preeti Deo.