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Cayenne Pepper (Salt L Take a moderate-sized)
Salt. L Take a moderate-sized cauliflower, close and white, cut the stalk quite close, and cut away the outer withered leaves. Put it head down into a large saucepan, with plenty of fast-boiling water, slightly salted, and let it boil until tender; it will take from fifteen to twenty minutes. If it turns over in the water, as it is apt to do, it must be turned back again with a fork, for the flowers keep whiter well under the water. Care must be taken to remove any scum that rises. When the centre of the flower yields to pressure, it is done. Take it up carefully with a slice, and drain it over a sieve. But while it was boiling, the sauce should have been made.
Two ounces of grated Parmesan cheese, one ounce of butter, half an ounce of flour, one gill of cold water, a tablespoonful of cream, and as much cayenne pepper as would cover the flat surface of a split pea. Put the butter and flour into a small stewpan, and mix them thoroughly, off the fire, with the back of a wooden spoon; add a gill of cold water, and stir the sauce over the fire till it is thick and quite smooth, then add the cream, the cayenne, and a pinch of salt.
When the cauliflower is done enough, take it up, place it on the dish in which it is to be served, and squeeze it gently together in a clean cloth, held with both hands. Stir half the cheese into the sauce, and then pour the sauce gently all over the flower; sprinkle the remainder of the cheese over the top, and brown it as macaroni is browned.
Serve it very hot.
A whole boiled cauliflower under a Parmesan cream sauce, browned on top. The sauce is a small white roux enriched with cheese, and it must be ready the moment the cauliflower leaves the water.
- Timing is the hingeHave the sauce finished and warm before the cauliflower is drained. A boiled head cools and weeps fast, and sauce poured over a cold, wet cauliflower will slide off and thin out.
- A gillA quarter of an imperial pint, 5 fl oz, about 140 ml. With 1 oz butter and 1/2 oz flour this gives a coating sauce; the recipe itself says to stir it until "thick and quite smooth."
- Cooking the head wholeFifteen to twenty minutes is what the recipe allows for the "moderate-sized" head it calls for; test as directed, at the centre of the flower. A smaller head will be tender sooner. Cook it to yielding, not collapsing, or the squeezing step will break it apart.
- Squeezing in a clothThis is genuinely worth doing. It expels the water trapped between the florets, which would otherwise dilute the sauce on the plate. Use a clean, dry tea towel and press gently with both palms so the head keeps its shape.
- "Brown it as macaroni is browned"The book expects the reader to know the method from elsewhere in the volume; no temperature or apparatus is named here. A hot grill or broiler now, two or three minutes with the dish close to the element.
- The cayenne measure"As much as would cover the flat surface of a split pea" is roughly a small pinch, well under 1/8 teaspoon. It is meant to sharpen the cheese, not to be tasted as heat.
- CheeseGrate the Parmesan fresh from a piece rather than using pre-grated. Note that the recipe adds its pinch of salt before the cheese goes in, so taste before adding any more.
- YieldOne medium head serves four as a savoury or vegetable course, two as a light supper dish.
Cauliflower boiled whole and masked with a cheese sauce runs through nineteenth-century English cookery as a dish of French descent, closely related to what French kitchens called chou-fleur au gratin. It may have been intended as a savoury, though a whole cauliflower in cheese sauce was at least as often served as a vegetable dish: in a late-Victorian or Edwardian dinner the savoury came after the sweet, a small, hot, sharply seasoned dish meant to close the meal, which would explain the cayenne and the insistence on Parmesan rather than a milder cheese. The instruction to keep the flower head-down under fast-boiling water reflects a period preoccupation with whiteness in vegetables, the same instinct that led cooks to boil cauliflower in milk and water or to add a little lemon juice. The direction to brown it "as macaroni is browned" probably assumes the reader already knows the technique from elsewhere in the book, a common shorthand in manuals written for cooks working through a whole volume rather than a single page.