We're gonna make a roasted cauliflower orecchiette.
So I'm gonna drizzle on some really good fruity
extra virgin olive oil, not a ton.
A couple of turns of the bowl.
For two, I told you I'm using almost double the amount.
I did two medium instead of one large cauliflower.
I have added maybe three tablespoons of oil.
Not a lot, okay?
To this, we're going to add the zest of two full lemons,
two tablespoons of thyme,
a good amount of salt to draw the liquid out
so it gets nice and crunchy and gives up all of its flavor
and natural sugar which is low in vegetables of course
but you're trying to develop those color equals flavor
and a little black pepper.
We have a large pan to form our olive oil based sauce in
and we're gonna get the cauliflower in the oven
at a very high temperature, 450 degrees
until it's crispy and develops its flavor fully.
So what we do now is just literally pull up my sleeves
and run my hands through this cauliflower.
It's really the most efficient way to deal with this job
and then transfer it.
This is gonna cook way down
as it roasts in our super hot oven.
This is a few anchovies for flavor.
It's a natural salt source
that I've put into this oil, three or four, okay?
You see what happens?
Do you see what I just did just for the tip of this?
This has only been on warm.
I just turned the heat up a little bit
'cause we're gonna now start cooking with the sauce
but do you see what happened?
It literally turned to mush.
It went away.
It dissipated.
Now, I'm using Calabrian chili paste,
a spoonful as you can see.
In the pan combining with that,
can you show them the pan?
See, the paste just melted in as well.
This is actually a little milder than using the flakes
but everybody has the flakes in their pantry,
in their cupboard.
So you want a teaspoon of flake
or a big rounded teaspoon or two if you're measuring
but you shouldn't of the Calabrian chili paste
per the eight to 12 ounces of pasta,
per the whole head of cauliflower.
So in our pan here, now I'm bringing the heat up to medium
and it's starting to bubble.
So now I'm gonna grate in my garlic
and this is exactly aglio e olio.
All I add to this is pasta and parsley.
We're going to also add a few capers to our dish.
Few tablespoons.
These are capers in brine of course
so all I had to do was drain off a little of their brine
and then we're going to add for acidity
and flavor of course,
we're going to add either white vermouth
which is fortified wine
so wine that is put into a vessel with aromatics.
So this is fortified wine
or you can just use of course white wine.
If you don't allow alcohol in your house,
just use some stock,
a little chicken stock or vegetable stock.
Now, you can buy fresh orecchiette or dry.
Regardless, you wanna cook it one minute less
than the package directions.
What's going on with that weird piece of hair, huh?
We wanna cook it one minute less
because of carryover cooking.
So we drop that in.
Here's our cauliflower.
How great does that look?
Yum.
I added the cut lemons to the tray
and this went about 20 minutes
and it looks just about perfect.
See?
Nice and crispy at the edges there.
We are making half now and half later
so I think I'm gonna put half in to our sauce now
because clearly the back of the tray got a little crispier
than the other half.
I'm gonna throw the rest back in the oven.
This is what you would be making at home
in the correct amount 'cause I'm gonna use half the tray.
Okay, now we're gonna add our little bit of pasta.
We're going to add one cup parsley,
a little Parmigiano-Reggiano.
Cheese of course.
And the juice of our roasted lemon
and our starchy cooking water,
the magic liquid that marries everything.
Turn the stove off
and that's why we undercook the pasta a little bit, right,
because of the carryover cooking
and then I'm sprinkling over for texture,
this is optional but I like it, a little pistachio.