Golae Satay Roasted Cauliflower

The Golae paste started on skate. You dip the fish, apply the paste liberally, lay it on banana leaf and grill it until the edges caught and caramelised, rich and smoky and sour and sweet all at once. It came onto the vegetarian tasting menu at Farang because cauliflower takes smoke and fire the way fish does. A whole head steamed soft in the middle and charred hard on the outside earns its place next to any piece of meat I've cooked. Don't let the fact that the vegetable does all the talking put you off. Carnivores, this one is for you too.

Golae Satay Roasted Cauliflower

Serves: 4 | Prep: 40 mins | Cook: 50 mins

Ingredients

For the Golae paste:

• 50g dried long red chillies (deseeded, soaked in warm water until soft, then chopped)

• 15g coriander root (scrubbed and chopped, or the tender stem bottoms if you cannot get root)

• 80g red shallots (peeled and chopped)

• 80g garlic (peeled and chopped)

• 80g ginger (peeled and chopped)

• 80g grated coconut (fresh or frozen)

• 30g roasted peanuts

• 1 tsp salt

To cook out the paste:

• 4 tbsp coconut cream (the thick part from the top of the tin, or a neutral oil)

• 2 tbsp palm sugar (grated)

• 2 tbsp fish sauce (or seaweed sauce or light soy to keep it vegan)

• 2 tbsp tamarind water

For the cauliflower:

• 2 medium cauliflowers (outer leaves trimmed, core left in so the head holds together)

• A little oil for the grill

• Moistened coconut husk or desiccated coconut (for the embers)

For the sauce:

• 400ml coconut milk

• Tamarind water, palm sugar and fish sauce (to finish)

To serve:

• Steamed jasmine rice

• A knob of ginger (cut into fine julienne)

• Pickled chillies

• Crispy shallots

• Roasted peanuts (roughly chopped)

• Curry leaves or Thai basil

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Method

1. Blend everything for the paste to a smooth paste, loosening it with a splash of the chilli soaking water if it seizes and refuses to move. The smoother you get it now, the cleaner it cooks out later, so give it time and scrape the sides down.

2. Warm the coconut cream or oil in a wide pan and add the paste. Fry it out over a low heat, stirring almost without stopping so it does not catch and burn on the base. You are waiting for the oil to split back out and the raw shallot and garlic smell to turn deep and toasted. This takes ten to fifteen minutes and there is no rushing it. Cook it hard here and the whole dish sings, cook it lazily and it tastes of raw paste no matter what you do later.

3. Season with the palm sugar, fish sauce and tamarind and taste it properly. It should be rich, smoky, salty and sour with the sugar sitting underneath, no single flavour out in front. Add more tamarind if it needs sharpening, more fish sauce if it falls flat, a little more sugar if the sourness bites too hard. Split the paste in two. Half marinates the cauliflower, half becomes your sauce.

4. Steam the whole cauliflowers until a knife slides into the core with only a little resistance. Spread them out and chill them right down, ideally cold from the fridge. Cold cauliflower holds its shape over the coals and drinks the smoke instead of collapsing into mush. Warm cauliflower falls apart on the grill, so do not skip the chilling.

5. Rub the marinade paste all over the cold heads and push it right down into the gaps between the florets with your fingers. Leave it an hour on the side, or overnight in the fridge if you have the time and want it deeper.

6. Build a fire with hardwood charcoal and a little wood for flavour. Grill the cauliflowers steadily, turning them as they go, until the paste colours and caramelises and the outside chars in dark patches. Every so often scatter moistened coconut husk or a little desiccated coconut over the embers and let that coconut smoke wash up over the heads. That smoke is the finish that ties the whole thing back to the skate it came from.

7. Let the reserved paste out with the coconut milk over a gentle heat until you have a loose, spoonable curry. Bring it back into balance with a little more tamarind, palm sugar and fish sauce. Taste again: rich and coconutty, sour and salty behind it. Seaweed sauce or soy in place of the fish sauce if you are keeping it vegan.

8. Spoon the sauce onto the plate, sit the charred cauliflower on top and scatter with chopped peanuts and curry leaves or Thai basil. Jasmine rice alongside, with ginger julienne, pickled chillies and crispy shallots to cut through the richness.

Chef's notes

In the restaurant I vacuum pack the cauliflower with the curry and steam the two together, which forces the flavour all the way into the core before it ever sees fire. Most people at home will not have a chamber sealer, and you do not need one. Steam, chill hard, marinate, then grill and you get most of the way there. The chilling is the part people skip and the part that matters most.

The paste is the same style of thing we bottle at Payst, built for exactly this kind of cooking, so if you want the shortcut it is there. If you are making it from scratch, it keeps well in the fridge under a film of oil for a week and freezes happily, so scale it up and bank the extra. If you like what smoke and sour fruit do to rich, oily flesh, the same instinct runs through my Crispy Salmon and Sour Fruits Salad, worth a look if this one lands for you.

Visit us at faranglondon.co.uk. Sauces and pastes for cooking Thai at home at payst.co.uk.

For more recipes, signed copies of my cookbooks are available at Payst: Cook Thai and Thai in 7.

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