Crispy Spiced Cauliflower Steaks Recipe (2024)

How do you cut the cauliflower to make a steak?

I prepared a batter of a beaten egg, added olive oil to the egg and salt. Put the coliflower in the batter and then breaded it in home-made non-glutten bread crumbs. Put in the oven, in broil, and they were crunchy, delicious, with 1/10 of the colories of this recipe.

Is this as delish as it sounds if you sub canola or olive oil for unloved coconut oil? Samin, Ella, cooks, please report if you try with those oils.

This looks fantastic, and I am eager to try. However- the calories are giving me pause. Yikes. Wondering if another kind of oil, or blending with another oil, might help?

Any neutral vegetable oil is fine. (Avoid EVOO, whose flavor will dominate.)This recipe is a variant of an Indian vegetable-fritter recipe that typically uses a chickpea-flour batter, which acts like egg in coagulating quickly because of its protein content. In India, coconut oil use is prevalent mainly on the coast, where coconut trees are abundant. The rest of the country uses a variety of vegetable oils (soybean, canola, peanut, cottonseed) with mustard-seed oil prevalent in Bengal.

Ok. Why is everyone avoiding the toughest question: How do you cut a cauliflower into steaks. I tried this for a shore dinner last year and I got maybe one usable "steak" per head. Everyother effort make the head fall apart. Should I microwave the whole head, or steam it for a while? Happy for your solution to making cauliflower "steaks". They are flowerlike and beautiful but challenging!!

What is the significance of the "Diamond Crystal kosher" salt vs. ordinary kosher salt or just plain table salt?

Giving weights is great, but I'm not aware of any widely available scale that measures in thirds of an ounce. Grams or ounces with decimal points would be much more useful.

Here's a handy tip for cleaning out your blade spice grinder (so that you can grind different spices): clean out the grinder as best you can with a slightly dampened paper towel. Add 1/4 c. uncooked rice. Buzz until the rice has turned to powder. The rice powder/flour will absorb the oils from the spices. Dump out the rice powder. Dampen a clean paper towel and wipe out the grinder again. You can wash the lid with soap and water.

In my part of India, the garam masala variant's like Chinese 5-spice: equal parts (wt) of cinnamon, cloves, star anise, black pepper, cardamom (5-spice replaces the last 2 with fennel and Sichuan pepper).The much cheaper cumin, coriander seed, fennel and cayenne are added separately (the 1st three in larger quantities) and aren't considered part of the blend.If your garam masala mix has coriander/cumin, 4-5 tsp total should be fine. If not, use 1 tsp and add cumin,coriander,fennel separately.

If you have a low-end coffee grinder (price: approx. $10) use that, or buy a separate coffee grinder for dedicated use. The grinding takes all of 15-20 seconds. Pre-ground spices lose their flavor quite quickly (3-6 months), while the shelf-life of whole spices is about 3-4 times longer. Also, bulk whole spices purchased at ethnic groceries (notably Indian stores) are dramatically cheaper, and you shouldn't let their "wholeness" stop you from getting good deals.

Epic fail. I made this as written (or at least tried to) but clearly must have done something wrong. The coating fell off immediately, sank to the bottom of the pan, and burned. I ended up with burnt bits of batter and soggy, greasy, undercooked cauliflower. Not worth the time, effort, ingredients or calories. I'll stick to roasting cauliflower from now on.

How does this batter compare to pakora batter or tempura batter. It seems everybody is trying to customize their own batter, so it'd be great to have a mini-tutorial on the differences between and principles of various batters for frying.

This is the westernized version of Bhajia/Pakora- try it with chickpea flour and rice flour- and ensure that the oil is hot and smoking-any cooking oil that is suitable fir frying is okay. Indian dishes typically use peanut/ sesame/ saffola oils.

I’m sure this is going to be delicious but honestly, it’s way too much trouble for a home cooking situation. I halved the recipe for 2. They burned on med high after 4 minutes.

My son cooked this for Christmas dinner this year and it was divine. I will certainly make this dish in the future.

So yummy! Made the cauliflower and topped with a mixed green salad tossed with a little vinaigrette, a dollop of yogurt. some pomegranate seeds and a squeeze of lemon. I did use just 1 T salt in the batter, but omg, I could eat this often! So flavorful.

The flavor of this dish is great, the only downside is that the batter was very gummy and stuck to my teeth. I’m not sure what it is, probably the flours involved, but it was tough to eat.

Cloves of what? Garlic or cloves? It just says to grind the cloves.

We made this with the flours as written (brown rice and tapioca), and it was nice and crispy. For those who are asking, these flours produce a crisper crust than besan / chickpea flour.

My notes, after reading (all) comments:I tried both steak shapes– cutting vertically and horizontally. Both fine, but my family + I preferred the "fritters" much more than the whole steaks. Easier snacking, faster to cook.It look me a few go-arounds to get the seasoning right. I used garam masala, probably 6tsp total. Also doubled turmeric power + cayenne, ended up upping salt after first batchI used rice flour + subbed chickpea for tapioca– worked well + I was happy with the crunch!

Yum. Made a half recipe, as written but omitting cayenne. I found that I only got 3 "steaks" out of my small cauliflower head and the rest were more like nuggets, since they didn't include the central stalk to hold them together. The nuggets were just as tasty but more of a pain to flip. I also found that it took nowhere near 8-12 minutes on the first side. More like 4-5. These were delicious and addictive. The only problem was eating too many of them and then feeling yucky bc all the oil.

Spicy. Go easy on the tumeric. Cut steaks with bread knife. Used metal icing tool and fork to turn, easy. I prefer dollop of sour cream to yogurt. I added batter once they were frying because it stick better then. Err on the side of thick vs. too thin on batter. Will cut thinner steaks and thin the batter a little next time. Will just roast all the leftover cauliflower - great recipe!

Success! Looked just like the picture and tasted delicious. Took one commenter’s suggestion to let the steaks sit on a sheet pan once battered while the oil came to temperature. Delicious crispy crust, with enough batter left to do the extra florets as a side dish next week. I think the key to crispness is making sure the oil is hot enough.

Made this last night and it was great (I was proud that it worked for me)! --consistency of batter was a little thin, and just fell off the cauliflower, so I added a little more rice/tapioca flour to make a medium soupy, but not thick batter--a cast iron frying pan or coated cast iron pan is key for making sure the cauliflower steaks cook slowly enough not to burn and cook through--don't fixate on "steaks"--some pieces fell off into florets, which sliced became more like fritters--but good!

One more thing: Take salt recommended amount with a grain of salt! I didn't have "diamond crystal" so I used flaked salt--1 tbsp, not 2 tbsp and 2 tsp!

My only issue was getting good cuts out of the whole head of cauliflower. I found that I could only use part of the head as "steaks". The rest fell apart. Any tips? I could definitely us the cuttings as "rice"??

More of a question really.. I have a friend who cannot eat gluten and is also allergic to rice. What could I substitute for rice flour?

Great flavors but I would reduce the amount of salt.

The rice flour makes this really stick to your teeth. Good flavor though.