Smoked Trout Salad with Cauliflower ‘Cous Cous’

Besides being ridiculously good for you (and, somehow surprisingly, with a crazy amount of Vitamin C, among a whole string of other healthy attributes), cauliflower is brilliantly multi-faceted in the kitchen. In our house we’ve almost completely replaced heavier carbohydrates like rice and potatoes for creamier, lighter versions with puréed cauliflower. The best way to make it is to steam the cauliflower until cooked through, then blend using a stick blender (I find this gives the best result, mashing with an ordinary potato masher won’t give you a smooth consistency as it does with potatoes). Then just add a little butter and seasoning and you’re golden.

That’s not the point of this post though. Today I’m here to tell you about how perfectly wonderful cauliflower can be when it’s magically transformed into ‘rice’ or ‘cous cous’. Somehow, the raw crumbled cauliflower holds its shape perfectly when cooking and it doesn’t go mushy, and it takes about two minutes to cook. It’s light and fluffy and pretty amazing. And then of course it’s the most brilliant blank canvas for so many flavours and toppings. We’ve had cauli-rice with everything from creamy chicken korma and oxtail, to a simple salad base like I have here. I don’t know what more I need to say to convert you all without sounding perfectly nutty, but it’s one of my favourite kitchen quick-fixes, so give it a bash as soon as you can.