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CAULIFLOWER (a la Bchamel)
Remove all the green leaves from a cauliflower, and divide it into good-sized pieces; parboil, and then stew it till tender in a little veal broth, with salt, pepper, and a little piece of mace. When done, take it out, pour a rich bchamel sauce over it, and serve. Probable cost, 8d.
A short Victorian method that assumes you have veal stock and béchamel already at hand. The only real skill is stopping the cauliflower while it still holds its shape.
- Don't overcook itParboil the florets 3-4 minutes in salted water, then finish in the broth only until a knife slides in with slight resistance — 5 minutes or so. Cauliflower stewed "till tender" in the Victorian sense collapses into sulphurous mush.
- Veal brothRarely sold now. A mild light chicken stock is the closest substitute; avoid dark beef stock, which will overwhelm the sauce. You need enough to come halfway up the florets, and rather more than a cup if you mean to build the sauce on the strained liquid.
- MaceThe dried outer coat of the nutmeg, warmer and less sweet than the seed. Blade mace is best here because it can be lifted out; if you use ground, a scant pinch is enough for a whole head.
- Béchamel, 1890s styleIn nineteenth-century usage a "rich béchamel" generally meant a white roux sauce built with stock and cream rather than milk alone. For one cauliflower, make about 1 1/2 cups: 2 tbsp butter, 2 tbsp flour, 1 cup of the stewing broth strained, 1/2 cup cream, seasoned and simmered until it coats a spoon.
- Use the cooking liquidThe broth the cauliflower stewed in is the best thing in the pan. Strain it and use it as the liquid for the sauce instead of pouring it away.
- Drain properlyLift the florets out and let them sit a minute on a cloth or in the colander before saucing. Water clinging to the crevices will thin the béchamel on the dish and make it look broken.
- YieldOne medium head serves four as a side dish. Serve it hot in a shallow dish; the sauce sets and skins over quickly as it cools.
- "Probable cost, 8d."Eightpence, the price the book quotes for the whole dish; the book attaches a probable cost to its entries.
Béchamel is the senior member of the French white-sauce family, generally traced to the kitchens of seventeenth-century France and named for Louis de Béchameil, a steward of Louis XIV, though the attribution is traditional rather than documented and the sauce itself is almost certainly older than the name. In the classical form recorded by nineteenth-century cooks it was often not the plain milk sauce of modern usage but a velouté enriched with veal stock and cream.