A few months ago, my friends Jenny and Dave made the famed Miznon whole roasted cauliflower at home and raved about the results. One of my biggest pandemic regrets is that I kept pushing off our trip to the NYC Miznon location (last reservation I made and cancelled was for March 13, 2020), so I have yet to try this cauliflower sensation (let alone their other delish vegetarian options!).
Hearing that I could try this dish at home – and that it wasn't difficult – inspired me to look for smaller cauliflower heads that may work with their recipe. Unfortunately though, our grocery store generally seems to have gigantic cauliflower heads so months passed before I found what seemed to be a sufficiently manageable cauliflower size.
While it took me awhile to figure out the logistics of how to boil the cauliflower (watching the Food & Wine video would have helped!), I ended up using a colander instead of a ceramic plate to keep the cauliflower submerged. I also substituted kosher salt for the sel gris to fit what I had on hand.
After draining and baking the cauliflower, it wasn't as browned as I liked so I turned on the broiler for 2 minutes which some other websites recommended. That worked great to get the dark browning throughout the cauliflower head and also made up for my not-quite-even cauliflower base, which meant the cauliflower fell over during baking instead of remaining head up.
While I served the cauliflower with tahini, we didn't quite like the combination (might have also been that our tahini isn't the highest quality) so I may make another sauce for this in the future. I otherwise though loved this well-salted, soft, and lightly oiled cauliflower. I look forward to making it again as a great side or meal centerpiece.
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