Arnabeet Mekleh (Fried Cauliflower) Salad Recipe: My Open Sesame Re-creation

My favorite salad.  If you haven't had this before, you are most likely wrinkling your nose at the lowly cauliflower.  Just like I did.  

Whenever we visit Southern California, the restaurant that is always at the top of our must-eat list is Open Sesame, which is located in Long Beach's Belmont Shore.  This restaurant opened up on 2nd Street when I was in college and it was always fun to check in on them and see the rave reviews slooowly appear on the walls and eventually take over.  As word eventually got out, it became harder and harder to grab a quick dinner there, but it was always worth the wait.


If you get a chance to visit, the owners actually bought the place next door and made that part of the restaurant.  Because business was still growing, they then bought the place just five doors down on that block and made that part of the restaurant.   Even with all of that expansion all three restaurants are consistently packed out around dinnertime!

My vegetarian recommendations are the following:

Foul M'Damas with a side of rice (this comes with a lot of veggies as well)
Fried Cauliflower Appetizer
Labne WITH a Zaatar with light feta cheese

If you're super hungry or with a small group, get the Fried Potato Appetizer (or plate, if there's a lot of you) and some hummus and baba ghannouj as well.  If you are a carnivore, I hear great things about the chicken schwarma, but you are going to want the cauliflower in addition to your super tasty dead animal.

The very first time my dad told me about this salad, I swore he'd gone nuts or his taste buds had flat-out died.  I mean, come on.  Who recommends deep-fried cauliflower?    The answer to that question after consuming approximately $500 worth of this salad over the past decade is...ME!!!  When fried, the cauliflower transforms into the loveliest of all vegetables.  There's such a sweetness about her and you won't be able to get enough.  Do yourself a favor, follow my directions the first time, just to try it.  I know it's different, but it's so very good.

If you're sad that you can't go right now, here is my copycat version of their recipe.  I finally feel brave enough to share this recipe and I'm calling it "Closed Sesame Cauliflower Salad." I have made a few adjustments. Instead of using shredded romaine, I use either red leaf lettuce or butter lettuce, depending on what's available.  If you're serving this to kids, what I like to do sometimes is wrap the salad toppings in a cup of butter lettuce for easy eating.

A few other notes about this recipe: my tahini dressing is slightly thicker than others I've been served before.  The hubs actually considers this dressing better than the original we tried in the restaurant.   Additionally, although it looks like an obscene amount of cauliflower required here, I assure you that the florets do shrink up a ton as you fry them.  I am guilty of only frying up one cauliflower to serve our family of four and not having enough of it when it was time to sit down for dinner because I, um, ate most of it as I was on fry duty in the kitchen.  Whoops.  (Remember, I'm the hippo.)  Additionally, the last time I made this salad, I made the tahini and our favorite silky hummus the day before and it made making this salad super easy with not too much to clean up, so I definitely recommend that.

Recipe:  Closed Sesame Cauliflower Salad

Serves 4 (or serves a super-hungry me)

Salad Ingredients:

2 heads of cauliflower - cut the florets off into about 2" long segments, then halve them, quarter them if they're huge.

Vegetable oil, for deep-frying  (I have tried shallow-frying for this and it is an okay option, but only use that as an option if you run out of oil, okay?)

One head of Butter Lettuce or Red Leaf Lettuce

Part of one small onion, sliced (optional)

Tomatoes, about 2 Romas or 3 Camparis, cut into eights lengthwise.  Or if you are into the bland tomato thing, go buy yourself a rock hard beefsteak at the supermarket that doesn't even smell like a tomato.

3 T Sliced Almonds (I love Trader Joe's!) 

2 T Pine Nuts

1 Lemon, cut into wedges

Dressing, below

Tahini Dressing:

1/3 cup olive oil

1/3 cup lemon juice

1/3 cup tahini

3 garlic cloves (UPDATED: PLEASE KNOW THAT I ALWAYS USE THE BIGGEST CLOVES I CAN FIND IN MY GARLIC BASKET!  The ones I used in this recipe were massive! Probably the equivalent of  6 normal sized large cloves)

5 T water

1/2 T kosher salt

Preparation:

Start off by making the dressing.  Combine all tahini dressing ingredients into your food processor or blender.  Blend away.  Place mixture in the refrigerator until you're ready to plate up. If you are making this ahead, refrigerate in an airtight container.

Next, toast your pine nuts and almonds in a small frying pan (no oil added or anything!) over medium-low heat until the nuts are golden brown and fragrant.  Set aside.  Try not to snack on them.

Go and grab your favorite pan that is suitable for deep frying.  You are going to want to get at least a couple of inches of oil in the thing.  Heat oil to approximately 230 F (at least that's what was registering on my candy thermometer) or, if you don't have a candy thermometer, heat until you think that it will fry stuff without burning it.   Fry the cauliflower in batches, swirling and flipping the florets until they are a light golden brown on all sides.  Drain off as much oil as you can into the pot, and then place the fried florets on a paper towel covered plate to drain and cool.  Continue until all of the cauliflower is fried.

The cauliflower should look like this. 

Rinse lettuce and tear into bite-sized pieces.  When the florets have cooled to room temperature, it's time to plate up.  If you have any small sauce dishes or tiny bowls, grab those and fill with the tahini dressing, then sprinkle some of the toasted nuts on top of that and place one on each individual salad plate (the dressing is more of a dipping sauce in this dish...at least initially).  Be sure the florets have cooled to room temp; this way your lettuce won't wilt and your salad will be tastier.  Top the lettuce with lots of cauliflower, and a few tomatoes here and there, then with an onion slice and a lemon wedge.

The lemony garlic tahini goodness will be a fantastic companion to the fried cauliflowery sweetness.  When eating, be sure to dip your fried floret of choice into the dressing as your first bite.

Super yum.  

Different, but definitely delicious.  We serve this with some freshly baked pita bread and hummus that's been sprinkled with some sumac.