Looking through the refrigerator this morning I found a few items that needed to be used or tossed. Part of a head of cauliflower was the main ingredient that had to be liberated from the vegetable bin.
This is a wonderful little salad that pairs well with a sandwich. It was a popular side dish that Tyra and I served in the Tea Room way back in our Midland days. If memory serves me correctly, we also served this as part of a salad trio along with a marinated carrot salad and a small spinach salad.
Cauliflower, celery, black olives, Hellmann's, and Lawry's Garlic Salt; that's all
Separate the cauliflower into bite-size florettes. Dice the celery and slice the olives if you didn't purchase pre-sliced. I prefer slicing the whole olives. Give it all a gentle toss to combine.
Combine with the mayonnaise and garlic salt. Cover with plastic wrap and refrigerate for several of hours or overnight.
It's crunchy and has a great garlicky flavor.
Cauliflower Salad
Serves 4 - 6
Ingredients:
3 cups small florettes raw cauliflower
1 cup sliced black olives
1 cup diced (1/4" dice) celery
1/2 cup Hellmann's
1/2 to 1 tsp Lawry's Garlic Salt
Method:
Rinse and drain the cauliflower. Slice the olives and dice up the celery. Place all the vegetables in a medium mixing bowl. Fold in the Hellmann's then fold in the garlic salt. Blend thoroughly. Cover bowl with plastic wrap and place in refrigerator for several hours or overnight.
You will need to toss prior to serving. Regarding the olives, you may buy olives already sliced but I prefer to slice whole black olives. They seem to hold their shape better.
'Choû-Fleur' has an elegant ring to it doesn't it? Well, it's simply French for cauliflower. I love cauliflower in any form I can get it; raw on a crudité platter, soup, tempura, steamed. Mostly, at my house, it gets steamed, mashed and seasoned with butter, salt and pepper. That is my dinner many nights when I get home from work and am not super hungry.
I've been reading this book for quite some time now. It was published by Gourmet Magazine in the 1950's and 1960's. It's like a travel guide to the food in the different Provinces of France. During those decades we in the United States were not as familiar with French cooking as we are now; thank goodness for Julia Child, so this served as an introduction to many basic French foods that are common place to us now. It's been a super interesting read and I have been having fun with basic French cooking through this book. It was in this book that I found the recipe that I use as the base for any quiche I make.
Back to the cauliflower.... This evening I wasn't particularly hungry so I decided to do something with a head of cauliflower, oh, pardon me, choû-fleur, that I had in the fridge. I decided to go very French basic.
Using this book I made Cauliflower Au Gratin.
Start with a nice, head of cauliflower. Select one that is very white and void of a lot of brown spots.
Remove the green leaves and core the head. Coring will help the separation into florets easy.
Separate the head into florets. This is a pretty good size.
Rinse in a colander.
Place the cauliflower in a medium saucepan and cover with water. Bring the water to a boil and cook the cauliflower until tender yet a little crunchy; about 3 to 4 minutes. Pierce one of the larger pieces of cauliflower to test. You don't want to cook it completely.
Normally I would steam the cauliflower but I want to boil the cauliflower this time so I will have some cooking liquid to add to the sauce. Drain the cauliflower and save 1/2 cup of the liquid. Set the cauliflower aside.
Since this is a gratin, there is going to be a sauce that the cauliflower bakes in. To be a proper gratin this sauce will form a crust on the surface of the cauliflower when baked.
So now we make the sauce. The base of most French cream sauces is a Béchamel sauce. In the U.S. we all learned to make this in Home Economics class as a white sauce.
The sauce we'll make for our gratin is a Mornay sauce which is a Béchamel glorified with cheese and cooking liquid from whatever you are cooking with.
Let's make a basic Béchamel which is equal parts butter, flour and milk seasoned with a little grated nutmeg. For this recipe we are going to make 2 cups of white sauce.
Melt 2 Tbsp. butter in the same saucepan that you cooked the cauliflower. Once the butter has finished bubbling, whisk in 2 Tbsp. flour and blend until you make a paste, or a roux. Whisk off fire and allow to cook for a minute or two to rid the mixture of a floury taste.
Add 2 cups of very hot milk and whisk until smooth. Return to fire and whisk until the sauce begins to thicken.
Now, here is where the Béchamel sauce becomes Mornay Sauce. Add the 1/2 cup of reserved liquid that you cooked the cauliflower in. Boil until you have reduced the sauce by a good quarter. This is an important step. If you don't do this your gratin might be a little watery (which in itself will not ruin this dish. But not much can ruin this dish).
Stir in the Parmesan and Gruyère cheeses. Return to a low heat and stir in make sure the cheeses melt.
Add the nutmeg. Remove from the heat and finish the sauce with 2 Tbsp. butter. (hey, remember this is a French dish. There will be a lot of butter).
Coat the bottom of the dish with some of the Mornay sauce.
Fold the cauliflower into the remainder of the sauce and coat thoroughly.
Pour the cauliflower into the gratin dish and top with the reserved Gruyère cheese and bake in a 375°F. oven for 40 minutes or until the top is nicely browned.
This is so fabulous and will make the perfect side dish for any entreé.
Choû-Fleur Au Gratin - Cauliflower Au Gratin
Serves 4 to 6
Ingredients:
1 head cauliflower
1/2 tsp. salt
4 Tbsp. unsalted butter, divided
2 Tbsp. flour
2 cups milk
1/8 tsp. ground nutmeg, preferably fresh ground
1/2 cup reserved cauliflower cooking liquid
3 ounces Gruyere cheese, divided
2 ounces Parmesan cheese
Mise en Place:
- remove green leaves from cauliflower, core and break into florets. Rinse and set aside
- measure out salt
- divide butter in 2 Tbsp. portions
- measure out flower and milk
- measure out nutmeg
- shred cheeses and set aside 1 ounce of the Gruyère from rest
- equipment: saucepan, colander and gratin dish
Method:
Preheat oven to 375°F. Place cauliflower in saucepan and cover with water. Add 1/2 tsp. salt to the water. Bring to a boil and cook for 4 to 5 minutes until cauliflower is tender yet still crunch. Reserve 1/2 cup of the cooking liquid and drain cauliflower in a colander. Set aside.
Prepare the sauce. In the same saucepan you cooked the cauliflower, melt 2 Tbsp. of the butter. When the butter has stopped bubbling, pull saucepan off the heat and whisk in the flour until you have a roux. Allow to cook off heat for a minute or two. Heat the milk in the microwave for 3 minutes or until very hot. Return pan to heat and add the milk to the roux and whisk until smooth and sauce begins to thicken. Add the reserved cooking liquid and blend. Cook sauce until it is reduced to by one quarter. Pull pan off heat and whisk in the 2 ounces each of Gruyère and Parmesan. Return to low heat and stir until the cheese is melted. Add the nutmeg. Pull pan off heat and finish off with the remaining two Tbsp. butter.
Cover the bottom of the gratin pan with some of the sauce. Fold the cooked cauliflower into the sauce and stir to coat. Pour into the gratin dish and bake for 40 minutes, or until top is golden brown.
Cauliflower is one of those vegetables that is either loved or hated. Myself, I love it. I usually toss some in a steam basket then toss with butter, salt and pepper and I'm happy. So, when I come across a recipe for cauliflower that lets me take it a little further I'm all over it.
I found the recipe on Rick Bayless' website and selected it to share for I Heart Cooking Clubs July Potluck. I really liked the ingredients in this recipe.
Cauliflower, poblanos, cream, cheese, butter, and shallots.
I would put the recipe in the easy category. You'll get to practice some basic kitchen techniques like blanching the cauliflower and roasting peppers. I like to roast mine right over an open flame on the range top. Get them nice and blistered on all sides.
Once they are nice and charred, I put them in a plastic bag, close it and let them be for about 10 to 15 minutes. They'll steam which will make them easier to peel. The skin should slide right off.
Once peeled and seeded (please wear food gloves for this) you'll pureé in the food processor until it's smooth. This is going to be a great part of the sauce and it's such a beautiful green!
To get the sauce started you sauté the shallots
Make a roux by adding the flour. Be sure to cook the flour for a couple of minutes so the sauce doesn't have a doughy flavor.
You'll slowly add the cream (I like to warm my cream first) and whisk it in until it's smooth. Then, stir in your cheese. This recipe called for a Mexican queso anejo but I could not find that specific cheese. Rick mentions that you can substitute with Romano or Parmesan. I used Parmesan.
Lastly, stir in your Poblano pureé.
Slowly let it return to a boil and continue stirring until the sauce thickens. Remove it from the heat and add the salt.
Gently fold the sauce into the blanched, cooled and dried cauliflower florets.
Pour all into a lightly greased casserole and sprinkle with a topping made of chopped almonds (I used blanched), panko crumbs and a little olive oil.
Bake in a 400° F. oven for 15 to 20 minutes until bubbly and the topping has browned nicely. When you take it out of the oven you get to sprinkle the top with extra grated cheese. Yum.
The gratin turned out to be creamy with a crunchy topping thanks to the panko and almonds. The hint of poblano put it over the top.
Rick suggests, and I would agree, that this would make a great dish to take to a potluck dinner because you can make it ahead of time and it only takes 20 minutes in the oven.
A couple of added notes here...
I had a bit of this for lunch today and it does great as a leftover! The cauliflower stayed nice and firm; not mushy. Also, I think I might very lightly roast my almonds before chopping them; not too much because I don't want them to get too brown during baking.
Cauliflower Gratin
Adapted from Rick Bayless' Test Kitchen
Serves 8
Ingredients:
3 pounds cauliflower
2 large (8 ounces) poblano peppers
2 Tbsp. butter
1/4 cup diced shallots
1 Tbsp. flour
1-1/2 cups heavy cream
1/4 cup grated Mexican queso anejo or other garnishing cheese such as Romano or Parmesan + 3 Tbsp cheese for final topping
1 tsp. salt
1/2 cup panko crumbs
1/2 cup finely chopped almonds
1 Tbsp olive oil
Mise en place:
- Lightly oil and 11 x 7 casserole dish
- rinse and cut cauliflower into bite-size florets
- roast poblanos and place in plastic bag
- dice shallots
- grate cheese
- chop almonds (by hand or food processor)
- measure out butter, flour, cream, salt, panko crumbs and olive oil
Method:
Preheat oven to 400°F. Bring a large pot of heavily salted water to a boil and scoop in the cauliflower florets. Blanch for 4-5 minutes until just tender. Drain and rinse under cold water to stop the cooking. Spread onto towels and let the florets dry completely.
Remove the poblanos from the plastic bag and, wearing food gloves, peel and seed the peppers. Pureé in a food processor until smooth.
In a 4 quart saucepan, melt the butter over medium heat. Once the butter has melted, add the shallots and cook for several minutes or until the shallots have softened. Stir in the flour and continue stirring for 2 minutes to make sure that the flour has cooked. Whisk in the heavy cream slowly so you don't get lumps in your sauce. Then stir in the queso anejo (or other cheese) and the poblano pureé. Bring the mixture back to a boil and continue stirring until the sauce has thickened. Remove it from the heat, season with 1 tsp salt.
Place the cauliflower florets into a large mixing bowl. Pour the sauce over and gently toss to coat. Scrape the mixture into the prepared casserole dish.
For the topping:
In a small mixing bowl, mix together 1/2 cup panko crumbs, 1/2 cup finely chopped almonds and 1 Tbsp. of olive oil.
Spread evenly over top of casserole and bake for 15 to 20 minutes or until the top is golden brown. Remove the casserole from the oven and sprinkle top with remaining 3 Tbsp grated cheese.
I'm sharing this recipe at IHCC
