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Vegetable Plate, Club Style
1 large cauliflower 6 green peppers 3 cups cold cooked rice 2 tablespoons flour 2 tablespoons shortening 1 cup milk 1/2 teaspoon salt 1/8 teaspoon pepper 3/4 cup grated cheese 1 fresh tomato 6 glazed sweet potatoes Tie cheese cloth around cauliflower to hold flowerets together. Place in center of greased roaster and surround with the peppers stuffed with the cooked rice. Add just enough water to cover the bottom, so that the vegetables will not cling to the hot surface before their own juices are extracted. Cover closely and cook over slow flame for 25 minutes. Make a white sauce of the flour, shortening, milk and seasonings. When cooked add the grated cheese. Serve cauliflower on a hot platter and pour over the cream sauce. Surround with stuffed peppers, alternating with glazed sweet potatoes. Garnish with sliced tomato. Serves 6.
A whole steamed cauliflower with cheese sauce, ringed by rice-stuffed peppers and glazed sweet potatoes — a composed vegetable plate of the sort a club dining room would send out as the meatless option. The cooking is straightforward; the work is in the timing, since three components have to arrive hot together.
- Read the recipe backwards firstThe glazed sweet potatoes are listed as an ingredient, not made here — they are assumed to be already prepared, presumably from another entry in the book. Have them roasted or boiled and glazed and holding warm before the cauliflower goes in the pan.
- "Slow flame" and the covered roasterThis is stovetop steaming in a covered roasting pan, not oven work: low heat, lid on tight. The book gives no oven temperature; if you would rather use the oven, a moderate covered oven will work but expect to need longer than the stated 25 minutes.
- 25 minutes is for a large headA whole cauliflower of 2 lb or more takes about that long to reach tender at the core. A modern supermarket head is often smaller; test with a skewer at 15 minutes and pull it when the stem gives with slight resistance, since it keeps cooking on the hot platter.
- The cheeseclothTying the head keeps it from collapsing into florets when lifted. Wrap loosely — a tight wrap will emboss the surface — and cut the cloth away on the platter, not before.
- Shortening means fat, and butter is betterSubstitute 2 tablespoons butter for the shortening. With 2 tablespoons flour to 1 cup milk this is a medium white sauce that will just coat; loosen it with a little extra warm milk if it stiffens while the cheese melts.
- Cheese off the heatAdd the grated cheese to the finished sauce with the pan off the burner and stir until smooth. Held over direct heat it separates and turns grainy. The recipe specifies only "grated cheese"; a sharp cheddar carries better here.
- Season the rice stuffingThe 3 cups of cold cooked rice go in as-is, and plain rice in a plain steamed pepper is dull. Salt it, and a little of the cheese sauce, grated onion or chopped parsley worked through the rice improves it without departing from the dish.
- ServingServes 6, one pepper and one sweet potato each with a wedge of cauliflower. Warm the platter thoroughly — a cold platter kills this plate faster than anything else.