Cauliflower cashew bake

I love this dish! Everyone who tries it – asks for a recipe. I’ve now written it down to share the goodness 😃 I normally make this as a side dish as it is quite rich and compliment it with a nut roast, garlic bread or lots of vegetables.

Note You can use this sauce as a single cream (no need to cook) and wilt some spinach to make the best pasta dish.

Ingredients ~

Serves 4-5 people as a side dish or two-three people as a main dish

2 onions
Olive oil
Salt and pepper to taste
3 large or 5 medium bay leaves
3 cloves of garlic
1 medium cauliflower (I also use the tender light green leaves closest to the cauliflower white area)
Quarter tea spoon chilli flakes

For the sauce
About 150gm to 200gm of cashews (depending on how rich you like it made)
2 tablespoons of Yeast flakes (engivta)
Quarter teaspoon of chilli flakes
2 cloves of small garlic
One full lemon 🍋
Two pinches of salt
Pinch of pepper
4-5 tablespoons of Olive oil (you could replace with soya milk)

Note: Smoked salt is better in this sauce but normal salt will be fine too

Bread crumbs to cover the top

Instructions

Turn the fan oven on to 180°C. Leave a baking dish to heat up well.

Slice onions, peel and slice the garlic and make equal diced chunks of cauliflower so they cook at the same rate.

Get the hot dish out of the oven and saute the onion and bay leaves with a table spoon or two of olive oil, salt and pepper in the hot dish.

Then put the dish back it in the oven for 5 minutes until the onions start looking slightly golden and translucent.

Bring the dish back out and add the cauliflower and garlic and again a tablespoon of olive oil and coat all ingredients thoroughly. Another pinch of salt and pepper along with a quarter teaspoon of chilli flakes. Dish back in the oven for 10 minutes for cauliflower to cook.

You can take it out in 5 minutes and turn the cauliflower over for even browning/cooking.

Note: you could boil the cauliflower on a stovetop for 7-10 minutes but making them in the oven makes the final result tastier.

While the cauliflower is cooking, we prepare the sauce. Start with adding cashews in the blender and pour boiling water to cover the cashews. Then add the rest of the ingredients in the blender for the sauce and whizz it until it’s smooth. I use Vitamix for this. The liquid should be of the consistency between that of of double cream and single cream.

Pour this over your cauliflower in the baking dish and mix it up.