Curried cauliflower in a salad

I like to change up salads by using vegetables that are normally served hot.  This time I added curried cauliflower florets.

You need to boil the cauliflower for 5 minutes in salted water.  Then drain them and refresh them in cold water to stop further cooking at that point.  Drain again and pat dry with paper towel.

Heat some olive oil and 1/4tsp of curry powder in a pan and fry up your cauliflower until it has golden edges.  Take it out and rest it on kitchen paper.

Don't throw the curried oil out.  Keep it to use in the dressing.  Deglaze the pan with white balsamic vinegar (or whatever is your favourite vinegar) and pour that into the oil.  Add 1 clove of garlic finely chopped or crushed into the oil/vinegar mix while it is warm.  It will take the raw edge off the garlic.  Add ½ tsp of hot chilli jam (or other chilli sauce).

Prepare your other salad ingredients but don't assemble your salad until right before you need it and the dressing mustn't go on until you are serving up.  The reason for this is the inclusion of shredded lettuce which just goes all yucky if it is mixed with other salad vegetables too early and starts deteriorating the moment the dressing hits it.  In fact because of this I quite often don't put lettuce into salads.

So apart from the curried cauliflower I had:

¼ red onion

Apple cucumber (which was fiddly to peel and I felt a little bit bitter – I'll use the standard ones next time)

Tomato

Shredded lettuce (just a few leaves sliced thinly)

Capsicum (bell pepper)

A little bit of raw zucchini

A hint of chopped fresh basil and mint

This was not the prettiest salad but the flavour of the curry and the cauliflower was very nice.