Sweet & Spicy Chili Cauliflower

Talk about making a big mistake and liking it better than what I intended to make. This Sweet & Spicy Chili Cauliflower started out as Buffalo Hot Wing Sauce. But I picked up the coconut manna, which has a very rich and distinct coconut flavor. I intended to grab the coconut oil which has a mild to zero flavor profile. Oh well, one person’s mistake is another’s brilliant find.

As a kid cauliflower was a real treat. My mom would bread and fry it. Rarely would the cauliflower make it to the table. She would yell “don’t fill up on the cauliflower or you won’t have room for dinner”. And every single time she would be right. But we don’t bread stuff here and we certainly don’t fry. So the experimentation was underway.

It Sounds Complicated, but it’s Not

This recipe has a lot of steps. I’m not going to lie, it was a real pain in the ass to figure this one out. Step one is picking a nice cauliflower. You want the florets to be tight together and be devoid of brown spots. You can usually discard any discoloration that you find suspect by getting rid of those florets or cutting it away.

I threw away so many versions of this batter it’s crazy. While I could not mimic breading, nor did I want to. I figured a good batter would be smarter to attempt. This is a pretty delicate battle. You need to make it thick enough to stick and wet enough to not taste like sand.

Herbs and spices can be played with, but the wet to dry ingredients don’t have a lot of wiggle room. If I had to compare it with anything it would be tempura-like and future recipes will be spawned from this batter.

The Hot Sauce You’re Going to Want in Your Kitchen

Next attempt was to make a hot sauce. Almost all the recipes out there call for a prepared bottle hot sauce to be used. Well, we do everything we can from scratch. There aren’t a lot of recipes for a raw vegan hot sauce if any. Some tell you to pickle the peppers first, which might have been interesting. I’ll probably try that in the future, but for now, my short cut is delicious and I’m good with the outcome.

Some Mistakes are Better than the Original Idea

Once the hot sauce was complete, then I needed to come up with the actual sauce. It’s supposed to make my cauliflower taste like Buffalo Hot Wing Sauce after all. This is where I made my mistake. I cursed myself out like crazy because I used all the hot sauce in the first go around, using up my ingredients. Then I tasted it. I can’t say if I like it better or not, since I liked this so much. It’s a completely different flavor profile. A delicious variation that works really well with the cauliflower.

I threw it all together and gave some to Marie without telling her what it’s supposed to be and she ate the whole bowl…success! She didn’t even throw in her two cents, which is rare indeed.

RAW VEGAN RECIPE: SWEET & SPICY CHILI CAULIFLOWER

Tempura Batter

1 cup almond meal

3/4 cup pureed zucchini

2 tblsp nutritional yeast

1/4 tsp onion powder

1/8 tsp salt

1/4 tsp garlic powder

1/8 tsp pepper

1/2 tsp oregano

1/4 tsp basil

1/8 tsp sage

Put pureed zucchini and all dry ingredients together and mix well. Add water a 1/2 tsp at a time as needed. Do not make the batter too thin or it will not stick to the vegetables. Don’t make it too thick either or it will be gritty and clumpy.

Hot Sauce

1″ piece of cayenne pepper (if you want it hotter, put in a larger piece)

2 red fresno chili peppers

1 tsp sugar

1/8 tsp salt

1 1/2 tblsp raw apple cider vinegar

Liquefy all ingredients together. Give it a taste. If you want it sweeter, add a little more sugar. If you want it hotter, add a little more cayenne. Once the base recipe is made, if you want to add more heat but you’re out of fresh cayenne pepper, you can add a little dried bits at a time. The original recipes ask for a tabasco pepper but I couldn’t find one. It will change the flavor pretty drastically if you switch them out.

Sweet & Spicy Chili Sauce

1/2 cup soaked cashews (soak for 4 hours or overnight(

1/8 tsp onion powder

2 tsp coconut manna

1/8 tsp yellow mustard seed

1/8 tsp brown mustard seed

1 tblsp hot sauce (or to taste)

Blend ingredients together.

Preparation:

1 cauliflower (florets separated and trimmed)

Dredge florets into batter and place on teflex sheets. Place in dehydrator at 115 degrees for 2 hours. Turn the cauliflower over for an additional 2 hours. Remove from teflex sheet and place on mesh sheet for an additional hour (or 2 depending on how wet your batter was).

Toss batter coated cauliflower in chili sauce and enjoy! Serve with carrot sticks and our SWEET HEAT CHILE MAYO