Sundays with Sparky: Crispy Roasted Cauliflower

This one isn't really a recipe, per say - more of a method, but it's a family favorite and easy enough to do.  It's a frequent visitor to our dining table, as it is both mild-flavored and has delicious crispy bits.

The key to this recipe is how you cut the cauliflower.  It needs to lie flat against the cookie sheet to get crispy, so if you cut it into florets, it won't work.  The recipe I started with has you to cut it into flat planks, but this meant that you wound up with all kinds of little beheaded florets everywhere.  I finally figured out the trick: cut around the center core in thin pie-shaped wedges as all the florets grow out from the core.

First, we preheated our oven to 400 degrees.

Sparky started the process by cutting the head of cauliflower in half, then in quarters,





and then we cut quarter into thin wedges and cut the big core off the corner of each wedge.



A cookie sheet was liberally coated it with olive oil.  Sparky and I laid the flat cauliflower planks on the cookie sheet.



Once the whole head was laid out on the sheet, we drizzled them with more olive oil.






We baked them at 400 degrees on the top rack for about 5 minutes, then flipped them over and let them cook for another 7-10 minutes, or until they were crispy brown on the bottom and had softened slightly (we like our cauliflower al dente, if you want yours softer, cook it longer.)

Once out of the oven, we sprinkled the whole thing with coarse salt, and served it along with a Greek salad and fish sticks and custard, for which they made an excellent accompaniment.  Enjoy!