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Cauliflower With Stuffing
Choose a saucepan the exact size of the dish intended to be used. Cleanse a large, firm, white cauliflower, and cut it into springs; throw these into boiling salt and water for two minutes; then take them out, drain, and pack them tightly with the heads downward, in the saucepan, the bottom of which must have been previously covered with thin slices of bacon. Fill up the vacant spaces with a stuffing made of 3 tablespoonfuls of finely minced veal, the same of beef suet, 4 tablespoonfuls of bread crumbs, a little pepper and salt, 1 teaspoonful of chopped parsley, 1 teaspoonful of minced chives, and a dozen small mushrooms chopped small. Strew these ingredients over the cauliflowers in alternate layers, and pour over them 3 well-beaten eggs. When these are well soaked, add sufficient nicely flavored stock to cover the whole. Simmer gently till the cauliflowers are tender, and the sauce very much reduced; then turn the contents of the saucepan upside down on a hot dish, and the cauliflowers will be found standing in a savory mixture. Time, three-quarters of an hour. Sufficient for four or five persons.
This is a moulded dish rather than a side vegetable: the saucepan doubles as the mould, so its size and shape decide whether the thing turns out cleanly. Everything else follows from packing it tightly.
- Pick the pan firstChoose a straight-sided saucepan or deep sauté pan roughly the diameter of the serving dish, and pack the florets so they support each other. A loose pack collapses the moment it is inverted.
- "Springs" means sprigsBreak the head into florets of even size, stems trimmed, so they cook at the same rate. Two minutes in boiling salted water is a blanch only, meant to set the shape and colour before packing.
- Suet and minced vealBeef suet is sold shredded in some shops and can be ordered from a butcher; frozen and grated works as well. Minced veal is a butcher order in most places, and ground pork or a veal-pork mix behaves the same way in a forcemeat of this kind.
- The eggs are the binderThree beaten eggs poured over the layers and left to soak are what hold the mould together when it is turned out. Give them a few minutes to work down through the crumbs before adding the stock.
- Stock levelAdd just enough to cover; too much and the sauce will not reduce within the cooking time, leaving the mould sitting in liquid rather than in a thick savoury bed.
- Time and heatThree-quarters of an hour at a bare simmer will render the cauliflower very soft by modern standards, but that softness is what keeps the mould intact. The stuffing needs the time in any case; minced veal and egg should reach 160F throughout.
- Turning it outLet the pan stand off the heat for five minutes before inverting, and use a dish with a lip, since some sauce will run. Invert with the serving dish clamped over the pan rather than trying to slide it.
- YieldFour to five as the original states, which is a light main course rather than a vegetable side. A large cauliflower is likely to give somewhere around 2 lb trimmed, though the original gives no weight.