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Cauliflower
Trim off outside leaves and lay blossoms in cold salted water. Slugs and other insects will drop out, especially if gently shaken in the water. Tie in a piece of mosquito netting and lay, head up, in boiling salted water and cook gently from 20 to 30 minutes, or until very tender. Drain and serve with Hollandaise Sauce or Cream Sauce No. 1. This makes a delicious garnish for fried spring chicken or fried sweetbreads. Cauliflower with Parmesan cheese is made as above, adding a teaspoon of Parmesan cheese to the sauce before it is poured over the cauliflower. Sprinkle melted butter over it and bake a few minutes in a hot oven.
A straightforward boiled cauliflower, written when the head was cooked whole and served under a rich sauce. The only thing that really needs rethinking is the cooking time.
- Cut the time downTwenty to thirty minutes turns a whole head grey, sulphurous and collapsing. A medium head cooked whole is tender at 10-15 minutes; florets need 5-7. Test the thickest part of the stem with a knife tip rather than watching the clock.
- The nettingMosquito netting kept the head from breaking up and let it be lifted out intact. Cheesecloth does the same job, or simply set the head in a steamer basket and cover the pot.
- The salt soakThe recipe gives no time or proportion; half an hour in cold water with about a tablespoon of salt per quart works. Modern supermarket cauliflower is rarely buggy, but the soak still helps a head that has sat a few days.
- "Hot oven"For the Parmesan variation, read this as 425-450F, and only long enough to gloss the top -- three to five minutes. The cauliflower is already cooked, so the broiler works as well.
- Cheese quantityA teaspoon of Parmesan in the sauce is faint by current taste; 2-3 tablespoons of freshly grated cheese in a cup of sauce gives the flavour the name implies.
- Cream Sauce No. 1The reference is to the book's own basic white sauce, not given on this page; a thin white sauce of about a tablespoon each of butter and flour to a cup of milk or thin cream is the usual form. Any standard bechamel stands in.
- SweetbreadsSweetbreads are the thymus or pancreas of a calf or lamb, and now need ordering from a butcher. Fried chicken alone makes an unremarkable but perfectly good partner for the dish.
- YieldOne medium head serves four as a vegetable course, two if it is the centre of the plate.