Bang bang cauliflower

When I was in Boston a couple weeks ago, I had lunch at a random restaurant near my hotel.  I sat at the bar and asked the bartender for some recommendations.  She suggested one of their appetizers called bang bang cauliflower.  It was amazing and you can tell that I've been thinking about it since then!  It was fried cauliflower that was crunchy on the outside, tender on the inside, slathered in a sticky, sweet and spicy sauce.

So I had to try and make a version of it at home. I googled and it turns out that this is a dish that is not unheard of and various people have posted recipes.  None of the recipes I looked at were exactly what I wanted (mostly because i didn't want to fry the cauliflower and because I didn't want to buy too many new ingredients) so I decided to try my own version.  Here is what I came up with.

Makes 4 servings

Ingredients

1 head of cauliflower, cut into florets

2 eggs

1 cup panko bread crumbs 

1 tbsp Garlic powder 

Salt and pepper to taste

2 tablespoons chopped scallions

1/4 cup mayonnaise

2 tbsp sriracha 

1 tbsp cider vinegar

1 tbsp honey

Preheat oven to 400 degrees.  Crack the eggs into a bowl and scramble them up. Place the breadcrumbs into a shallow plate. Add the garlic, salt, pepper and scallions to the breadcrumbs and mix well. Dip the cauliflower florets in the egg, and then into the breadcrumb mixture so they are well covered.  Place so a baking sheet and bake for 20 minutes.

While the cauliflower is baking, mix the remaining ingredients together in a mixing bowl for the sauce.  Use as much of the Sriracha as works for your heat tolerance.  You definitely want the sauce to have a bit of a kick and not be too sweet. 

Take the cauliflower out of the oven after the 20 minutes is over.  I drizzled the sauce over top of the cauliflower but next time, I would actually toss the cauliflower florets in the mixing bowl with the sauce so they could get better covered.

Once sauced, put the cauliflower back in the oven for another 5-10 minutes.  These were delicious!  Even though they weren't fried, the panko gave it a great crunch, the cauliflower was tender on the inside, and the sauce provided a perfect burst of flavor to liven up the cauliflower.  Like I said above, I think it would have been even better if I had tossed the florets in the sauce so they were completely covered.

I'm will be linking up with Lean Lena for Tasty Tuesday and with Deborah and Tina for Meatless Mondays.