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Beignets of Cauliflower
Pare off the stalk and green leaves of a large, fresh white cauliflower; place it in a large saucepan, cover with water, add a tablespoon salt and a gill of milk; boil for thirty-five minutes. Drain, detach the flowers from the main stalk and place them on a plate, add a tablespoon oil, the juice of half a lemon and teaspoon chopped parsley. Mix well in the seasoning and let stand for fifteen minutes.
Prepare a batter for fritters. Carefully turn each piece of cauliflower into the batter and drop, one by one, into boiling fat and fry for ten minutes, being careful to turn them with a skimmer once in a while. Lift up with a skimmer, drain on a cloth, trim them well, place on a vegetable dish and serve.
A straightforward fritter, but the two timings in the original both belong to an era of softer vegetables and cooler fat. Shorten them and the dish works well.
- The boil is the thing to changeThirty-five minutes leaves cauliflower waterlogged and it will fall apart in the batter. Boil the whole head 8-12 minutes, until a knife meets slight resistance at the stem, then drain thoroughly and cool before dressing.
- A gill of milkHalf a cup. It is there to keep the cauliflower white rather than to flavour it; a tablespoon of lemon juice or a spoon of flour whisked into the water does the same job.
- Frying timeTen minutes will scorch the batter long before anything inside needs cooking, since the cauliflower is already tender. At 360-375F the fritters need 2-4 minutes, turned once, until the crust is set and pale gold.
- "A batter for fritters"The quantities are not given here: roughly 1 cup flour, 1 egg, about 2/3 cup milk or beer and a pinch of salt, beaten to the thickness of heavy cream, will do. It should coat a floret without sliding off.
- Dry before dippingThe oil-lemon-parsley marinade leaves the surface wet, which is where fritters usually fail. Blot each piece, then dust lightly with flour before it goes into the batter.
- SkimmerA wire spider or slotted spoon. "Drain on a cloth" is fine, though a rack over a tray keeps the undersides crisper than absorbent linen does.
- "Trim them well"Snip off the ragged tails of fried batter with scissors so each fritter is a neat round. It is a presentation step, not a cooking one.
- YieldOne large head gives about 20-24 florets, enough for four to six as a vegetable course. Serve at once with lemon wedges; fritters do not hold.
Beignet is simply the French word for a fritter, and this is the vegetable version of a technique the classical kitchen applied to everything from salsify to elder flowers: parboil, marinate briefly in oil, lemon and herbs, then batter and deep-fry. Filippini's International Cook Book gathered such dishes under headings that promised the world's cooking to American households. Cauliflower is often said to have been a fashionable vegetable in this period, and it is pale enough that cooks fussed, as here, over keeping it white.