This weekend your Sunday Sommeliers were lucky enough to finally get to use some of their fancier serving dishes – and even luckier to be joined for dinner by two really fun and fantastic people.Our guests brought over an amazing pre-dinner spread of meats, cheeses, and hummus, and your Sommeliers made a curried cauliflower and green bean salad with lemon yogurt and roasted tomato and squash tartlets topped with fresh mozzarella. We all supplied the wine.
After a little manic cleaning and fresh showers, your Sommeliers set the oven to pre-heat to 425 and started on the prep work. For the salad: chop one head of cauliflower, one red onion (thin slices), 1/2 lb. green beans (2 in pieces); for tartlets: slice one loaf olive oil ciabata into 1 in slices, chop 2 large red tomatoes, one pack heirloom tomatoes, and 2 green squash. The tomatoes and squash roasted together in one large baking dish, the onion and cauliflower on a cooking sheet, and the green beans in a small baking dish. While the vegetables were roasting, your Sommeliers toasted 2 pieces of wheat bread that were torn into bite size pieces in a small skillet. Rather than toasting the curry powder separately as the recipe suggests, your Sommeliers suggest you add the spice to the bread – that is unless you want your skillets to take on a strange yellow color that will not scrub off. Once the vegetable were all done, the cauliflower, onions, green beans, and croutons were tossed together and set aside; the vegetable and squash mixture was scooped onto the ciabata bread (on a baking sheet), topped with mozzarella, and popped back in the oven. While the cheese melted on the tartlets, your Sommeliers made the sauce to accompany the salad by whisking 1 tbsp of lemon juice into one small container of greek yogurt.
Our wine pairing(s!): a crisp South African Chenin Blanc that balanced out the curried cauliflower beautifully; a Horton Viognier (VA); a Sauv Blanc; and what I am told is a lovely Chateau St. Michel Chardonnay.
The results – well, pretty delicious, if we do say so ourselves. More importantly though, we had a great time with some great people.
Sounds like a recipe that may be in my weekend plans. You had me at the pairing, a South African Chenin, Raats Orignial is a rockstar. Sat night plans set. Cheers.
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You make us sound like much more fun than we are! We had so much fun that night. We’ll have to cook for you guys at some point…although I’m not sure our efforts will measure up!
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