Baked Cauliflower and Broccoli Cannelloni

I have been trying to cook more vegetarian food lately. Not for any great political or health reason, but just because it seems like a good thing to do and a way to create more variety in what we eat.

I remembered Jamie Oliver cooking this Incredible Baked Cauliflower and Broccoli Cannelloni on the Jamie at Home TV series and as he is wont to do, he raved about how much everyone - meat eaters included - would love this dish. I must admit, if it wasn't a JO recipe (his recipes are consistently good), I doubt I would ever have tried this. I mean, mushed up cauliflower and broccoli? Doesn't really jump out at you, does it!

But Jamie comes through again, ever reliable. It was a reasonably easy, if somewhat time-consuming dish to make, but as it was a Sunday, I enjoyed pottering around the kitchen to create a really yummy end result.

The broccoli and cauliflower are boiled and then pan-fried for about 20 minutes with lots of garlic, anchovies (okay, not 100% vegetarian), chillies and thyme.


When they are soft, they are mashed up and cooled and then piped into cannelloni tubes. The mixture doesn't look particularly good, but was actually quite tasty. It would probably make a nice dip or spread on crostini at this stage.

The sauces are passata, plus a 'quick white sauce' of creme fraiche and parmesan. A whole bunch of basil goes on top with lots of mozzarella and more parmesan before it is all baked into a steaming, cheesy, enormous dish of pasta. It is quite funny - cauliflower and broccoli are hardly the most flavoursome ingredients in the world, so you get the impression that everything else has been chosen to pack as much flavour in as possible. Oh, did I mention it is probably the most fattening dish I've made in a while with all that cheese and creme fraiche?

But never mind that, it was super tasty, quite unusual and made so much, that we were eating it for days! I served it with watercress dressed in lemon juice and olive oil, which also deserves a mention. Watercress is another one of those very British ingredients I read about all the time and my fruit & vegie shop finally had some. Bit disappointing after all the hype, actually - just tasted like random salad leaf. You win some, you lose some . . .

Incredible Baked Cauliflower and Broccoli Cannelloni
From Jamie at Home
Serves 4 to 6 (or 2 for a very long time!)

sea salt and freshly ground black pepper
500g broccoli, washed, florets and stalks chopped
500g white cauliflower, washed, florets and stalks chopped
olive oil
7 cloves of garlic, peeled and finely sliced
a small bunch of fresh thyme, leaves picked
25g tin of best quality anchovies in oil, drained and chopped, oil reserved
2-3 small dried chillies, crumbled
500ml passata
red wine vinegar
500ml creme fraiche
200g Parmesan cheese, finely grated
16 cannelloni tubes
a small bunch of fresh basil, leaves picked
200g mozzarella cheese
extra virgin olive oil
salad leaves (Jamie says rocket, we used watercress)
1 lemon

Preheat the oven to 190C. Bring a large saucepan of salted water to the boil and drop in the chopped broccoli and cauliflower. Boil for 5 to 6 minutes, until cooked, then drain in a colander, reserving the cooking water.

Heat a wide saucepan, pour in a couple of good glugs of olive oil and add the garlic. Fry for a few seconds, then add the thyme leaves, anchovies, anchovy oil and chillies and continue frying for a few seconds more before adding the cooked broccoli and cauliflower with around 4 tablespoons of the reserved cooking water. Stir everything together, put a lid on the pan leaving a little gap, and cook slowly for 15 to 20 minutes, sitrring regularly. Remove the lid for the last 5 minutes to let the moisture evaporate, then use a potato mashed to crush the veg. Take the saucepan off the heat, taste the vegetables and season carefully with salt and pepper.

Spread the mixture on a baking tray to cool. Meanwhile, get yourself another baking dish or roasting tray (the right size for fitting the cannelloni tubes snugly side by side - test this by actually laying the tubes into the dish, then remove them and put to one side) and pour in the passata with a pinch of salt and a swig of red wine vinegar.

Now, to make a really quick and easy white sauce, mix the creme fraiche with half the Parmesan, a sprinkling of salt and pepper and a little of the reserved cooking water to thin it down.

Spoon your cooled broccoli and cauliflower mixture into a large sandwich bag and cut off the corner. Twist the top of the bag and squeeze it to pipe the filling into the cannelloni tubes. Fill the tubes up and place then in a single layer on top of the passata. Lay the basil leaves over the cannelloni and spoon the white sauce evenly over the top. Season with black pepper, sprinkle over the remaining Parmesan and tear over the mozzarella. Drizzle with extra virgin olive oil and bake in the preheated oven for 30 to 40 minutes, or until golden and bubbling on top.

Dress the salad leaves with a squeeze of lemon juice and about three times as much extra virgin olive oil. Serve the cannelloni with the salad (Jamie suggests crusty bread as well, but we didn't need it).