Whole Baked Cauliflower with Tomato and Olive Sauce

Ingredients

1 red onion, peeled and sliced
5 cloves garlic, peeled and chopped
1 large head cauliflower, outer green leaves discarded, stalk chopped
olive oil
1 handful black olives, stoned
1 tsp. anchovy paste
1-3/4 cups Tomato passata
3/4 cup water
1 Tbsp. balsamic vinegar

Method

First of all, find yourself a pan in which your whole head of cauliflower will fit, leaving an inch around the outside of it – this is important, otherwise it won’t cook in the way it’s supposed to. I use my regular porridge-for-four-people pan and it works a treat! Add the onion, garlic and a lug of oil to the pan and slowly fry for 10 minutes until softened and with a little colour. Add the olives and anchovies and fry for another couple of minutes. Add the passata and water to the pan, with the balsamic vinegar. Stir everything together and bring to the boil.

Take your cauliflower and gently push it down into the sauce. If you’ve got the size of your pan right, half of the cauliflower will be in the sauce, half above it. Drizzle with olive oil, put the lid on and let it tick over on a low heat for 50 minutes. This is a pretty well-behaved dish when it comes to cooking it in advance and then reheating it just before you want to serve it.