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Gratinated Cauliflowers
After trimming off the leaves of two or three cauliflowers, leaving only the centers, boil them in water until they are about two-thirds done; then remove, drain and divide into sprigs or natural sections. Place a layer of these on the bottom of a baking-dish, cover them with a sauce made of melted butter in which grated Parmesan and Gruyere cheese have been mixed, and keep on in this way with the layers until the dish is full. Sprinkle a small quantity of cheese on the top, and then a few breadcrumbs or grated bread, pour over the top a little melted butter, and bake in a moderate oven until done and of a good color. If the cheese is not desired, it may be entirely discarded; but if it is used it should be mixed with the sauce and not simply grated on the top. Care must be taken to see that every portion of the cauliflower is covered with the sauce.
A gratin stripped to essentials: parboiled cauliflower, butter, two cheeses, crumbs. The instructions are loose in the way Oscar's kitchen notes usually are, so a few numbers help.
- Moderate ovenThe book gives no temperatures; by the conventions of the period a moderate oven is usually taken as somewhere around 350F. The cauliflower is already two-thirds cooked, so the bake need only be long enough to set the cheese and brown the crumbs. Finish under the broiler if the top is pale.
- Two-thirds done means firmThe heads are boiled whole and broken into sprigs only after draining, so they need longer than loose florets would; stop while a knife still meets clear resistance at the stem. Fully tender cauliflower collapses into mush during the bake and weeps water into the dish.
- Drain hardThe single thing that ruins this dish is water. Let the sections drain in a colander, then spread them on a towel for a few minutes before layering; a butter-and-cheese sauce has no starch to absorb liquid.
- The sauce is not a MornayMelted butter with grated Parmesan and Gruyere stirred in is a loose emulsion, not a bechamel. Keep the butter warm rather than hot, add the cheese off the heat, and expect it to be closer to a coating than a blanket. Cooks who want something thicker use a bechamel with the same cheeses, but that is a different dish.
- Cheese quantitiesNone are given. For two medium heads, roughly 4 oz butter and 4-5 oz cheese total, weighted toward Gruyere for melt and Parmesan for savor, will cover the layers without swamping them.
- Coverage is the stated ruleOscar insists every portion of the cauliflower be covered with the sauce, and separately that if cheese is used it be mixed into the sauce rather than simply grated on the top.
- Crumbs"Grated bread" is dry bread rasped on a grater, coarser than commercial crumbs. Toss the crumbs with the melted butter before scattering rather than pouring butter over the surface, which browns unevenly.
- YieldTwo to three heads make a side dish for six to eight, or a light supper for four with bread and a salad.
Gratins of this kind reached American hotel dining rooms by way of French practice, where au gratin refers to the browned crust rather than to cheese as such, which is why Oscar can say the cheese may be discarded entirely and still call the dish gratinated. The pairing of Parmesan for sharpness with Gruyere for its melt suited a hotel storeroom, both being imported and both keeping well. Oscar Tschirky's book was published in 1896. It is vague about quantities, giving the sequence and the cautions rather than the weights. The two admonitions here are to mix the cheese into the sauce and to coat every floret.