Boiled Lemon, Cauliflower and Tuna Salad
This salad is delicious. It’s also just made me cry! My eldest daughter, Grace has just left for college today with some of this in a lunchbox. Her last ever school lunchbox! That’s it, the final one, 16 years of packed lunches for Grace, with a final school assembly this afternoon followed by the next 5 weeks of her A Level exams. I have two other children still to assemble packed lunches yet for a good few years, but this moment today has knocked me sideways. It’s a wonderful and complicated experience being a mum with a child about to leave home. If I can cry at a last ever lunchbox of Boiled Cauliflower, Lemon and Tuna Salad, what will I be like come September!
Also, can I just say. Boiled Salad, you saw it here first!
INGREDIENTS
1 large cauliflower, broken in florets, stalk trimmed and cut to size
2 unwaxed lemons
1 red onion, very thinly sliced
1 tbsp coriander seeds
1 tin of sustainably caught tuna in olive oil
2 tbsp red wine vinegar, or more to taste
Chilli flakes, to taste
Big bunch of coriander, roughly chopped
Good olive oil, enough!
Salt, enough!
500g approx good chubby chickpeas, drained
METHOD
Get a large pan of well salted water onto boil. Add the coriander seeds and lemons and boil for 10 -12 minutes. In this time, using a sieve, plunge the thinly sliced onions in the boiling water to cook for around 30 seconds. Remove the onions and plunge into cold water. Add the cauliflower to the lemons and coriander seeds in the boiling water. Boil until the cauliflower is just tender and the lemons are completely soft. Drain and cool slightly.
In a large serving bowl. add the boiled cauliflower, including any coriander seeds. Add the drained onions. Add the tuna, including the olive oil in the tin, drained chickpeas, chopped coriander and dress with the red wine vinegar and plenty of good olive oil. With the lemons cool enough to handle, squeeze out the jammy cooked lemon flesh over the salad in the bowl. Whip out any pips. Thinly slice the cooked lemon peel and add to the salad in the bowl.
Check the seasoning. Add more or less of everything, you want a highly seasoned, deliciously lemony tuna, chickpea and cauliflower salad!
Eat right there and then, or pack into a - LAST EVER - lunchbox and have a good cry, optional. of course!