Hearty dish features cauliflower, chickpeas, halloumi cheese
Loaded with chickpeas, grapes, pickled cauliflower and some browned Halloumi cheese on top of a mix of green leaf lettuce and radicchio, this salad goes the extra distance with two dressings. MT and I really enjoyed it as a meal unto itself.
Mark Guydish | For Times Leader
The ingredients for a hearty salad with cauliflower, grapes, chickpeas and halloumi cheese.
Mark Guydish | For Times Leader
The best way to convey how much we liked this salad is to give the sequence of MT’s responses.
“It’s beautiful!” she said when she first picked up a bowl in the kitchen before I could even bring it to the dining table.
“It’s very colorful,” she added after sitting down, fork in hand.
“The cheese is tangy,” she continued, taking a bite of the browned halloumi. Then, after getting a better taste of the various ingredients, added “Lovely, lovely! I’d almost say this salad is divine. It’s like something from a gourmet restaurant.”
Finishing the portion I gave her (I had a bit of everything left, but not enough for another full salad), she blew a chef’s kiss.
“My compliments to the chef! Wunderbar!”
Heading to the kitchen to get some of the leftovers, she provided one last observation.
“So delicious. And nutritious!”
When it comes to this “hearty salad,” I heartily agree. With two leafy vegetables, quick-pickled cauliflower, sauteed halloumi, chickpeas and grapes all topped with a tahini dressing, the flavors worked so well together I intend to make it again sometime this week.
Despite what looks like a lot of work, preparation isn’t that hard or that long. Cutting the cauliflower into suitably-small florets takes the most time, but I opted to use the whole head, which was double what the recipe calls for. I also tore all the lettuce and sliced all the radicchio, reserving less than half for future use. I didn’t bother measuring the chickpeas, using the whole can, and I sliced more grapes than called for — all of which explains why we had some leftovers of everything even after assembling two generous salads. Stick more closely to the recipe amounts and this should be relatively quick.
This was the first time I used halloumi cheese, apparently famous for not melting, thus allowing it to be browned. Personally I feel it tasted better when I sampled it right out of the pan, though it was still very good a short time later. But I’d suggest leaving the browning for the next to last step: add the fried cheese to the prepped salad and top with the tahini dressing.
One note: I didn’t have or find any dried Aleppo pepper, and didn’t bother using any substitute. I figured it would be fine without such a small dash of heat, though according to the web Aleppo brings some fruity and cumin-like undertones to a dish.
Dobru chut!
Hearty green salad with chickpeas, cauliflower and halloumi (America’s Test Kitchen)
¼ cup cider vinegar
2 teaspoons honey
1 teaspoon salt, divided
2 cups cauliflower florets, about 1 inch each
½ teaspoon plus 2 tablespoons extra virgin olive oil, divided.
4 ounces halloumi cheese cut into 4 thick slices
1 small head green leaf lettuce
1 small head radicchio
⅔ cup canned chickpeas, drained and rinsed
3 tablespoons plain Greek yogurt
2 tablespoons tahini
1 small garlic clove, minced
½ teaspoon dried Aleppo pepper
6 ounces seedless red grapes
Mix the apple cider vinegar, honey and ¾ teaspoon of salt in a bowl and whisk. Add cauliflower and toss to coat. Heat in microwave on high for 1 to 1½ minutes, to soften a bit while retaining a crunch. Cover and set aside.
Cut the bottom off the lettuce, cut in half lengthwise, and tear half a head roughly into a bowl. Cut radicchio in half, core one half and cut in half again (ending with two quarters of the original head). Slice thinly and add to the lettuce.
Halve grapes and set aside in bowl. Slice halloumi into four flat, equal pieces.
Remove cauliflower from pickling mix with a slotted spoon and place in another bowl. Keep the pickling liquid.
Heat ½ teaspoon olive oil in a pan over medium high until shimmering. Add as many slices of halloumi that fit your pan and cook 60 to 90 seconds until the side down starts to brown. Flip and cook the other side the same amount of time until brown. Remove from heat and cover to keep warm.
Add 2 tablespoons pickling liquid to 2 tablespoons of extra virgin olive oil in a large bowl and whisk to emulsify. Add this dressing to the lettuce and radicchio and toss to combine. Salt and pepper to taste.
Go back to the reserved pickling liquid. Add the Greek yogurt, tahini, garlic, Aleppo pepper and ¼ teaspoon salt and whisk together. Put ¼ cup of this dressing on chickpeas and mix to coat.
To assemble the salads, put a portion of the lettuce/radicchio mix in each of two serving bowl. Place two slices of halloumi on top of each salad. Place equal shares of cauliflower, grapes and chickpeas on the greens. For presentation, it may look best by making the piles into wedges, like slices of a pie, with one wedge left bare to show the lettuce and radicchio. Pour the tahini dressing on each salad and serve.
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