KFC Or Crispy Korean "Fried" Cauliflower!

Love Korean Fried Chicken but want to make a lighter oven baked version? How about using cauliflower instead of chicken? You can easily achieve golden, crunchy cauliflower nuggets in the oven! And best of all, you can give it a sticky, spicy Korean glaze to make Korean unfried cauliflower!

These come with a warning: I ate half of these easily and would have kept going but I had to leave some for Mr NQN. It's that good and so moreish. I loved the spicy sweet Korean glaze too and for best results roll it in the glaze just before serving and you'll get a lovely crispness from the breadcrumbs. Once I made half a cauliflower this way the next day I made the second half of the cauliflower the same way!

Apart from cauliflower in my kitchen I have a few things from my recent travels to share with you In My Kitchen, a series hosted by Sherry. The first things are cookies I bought from Phuket in Thailand. They got a bit flattened on the way home in my suitcase but there are popcorn covered sweets filled with palm sugar, coconut and jasmine mixture. There are also crispy shell shaped cookies (only one shell survived intact) that I found a bit dry. My favourites were the swirly black pepper cookies that were crisp and had a lovely spicy black pepper finish to them.

The second lot is also from Thailand and they are chips. My food writer friend Sofia and I film snack videos for Youtube. The snack game in Asia is amazing-chips come with sachets of sauce in fascinating flavours with different shapes. The waffle chips on the top right really piqued my interest. I'm also really interested to try the pineapple cheese cookies because I love cheese and fruit or sweet and savoury.

But I did already try one item which was the peanut chips and they were SO good. I had to ration myself to one packet a day which prompted a fight with Mr NQN because he didn't want to be responsible for my chip consumption. Seriously, it's tough being married to me and this is the sort of nonsense we fight about.

The last item is a gift from a lovely friend Jess. She bought some salted caramel peanut butter thinking that she might be able to make some recipes out of it but so far hasn't been able to and was worried about it going out of date so I was the lucky recipient of this Byron Bay salted caramel peanut butter!

And right now there are two whole cauliflowers left in my crisper because I loved this KFC or Korean Fried Cauliflower so much that I can't stop making it!

So tell me Dear Reader, do you like Korean fried chicken? Do you ever ask someone to put food out of your reach? What food souveniers do you buy?

Crispy Korean "Fried" Cauliflower

An Original Recipe by Lorraine Elliott

Preparation time: 20 minutes

Cooking time: 35 minutes

• 1/2 head of cauliflower, cut into large florets
• 1/2 cup milk
• 1/2 cup water
• 1/2 cup flour
• 2 cups panko breadcrumbs, finely processed
• Oil for drizzling

For sauce

• 1/4 cup tomato sauce/ketchup
• 1/4 cup rice malt syrup or honey
• 2 tablespoons gochujang
• 2 tablespoons soy sauce
• 2 tablespoons sugar
• 1 garlic clove, peeled and sliced
• 1 teaspoon onion powder
• 1 teaspoon sesame oil
• 2 tablespoons sesame seeds

Step 1 - Preheat oven to 225C/450F and line a baking tray with parchment. Blend the milk, water and flour together to form a slurry and dip the cauliflower florets into the batter. Then dip into the panko breadcrumbs and place on the tray. Repeat with all the florets. Drizzle with oil and bake for 30-35 minutes.

Step 2 - In a saucepan, add the tomato sauce, syrup or honey, gochujang, soy sauce, sugar, garlic, onion powder and sesame oil and heat and simmer for a minute. Toss the florets in this sauce. Sprinkle with sesame seeds. Serve immediately.