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Cauliflower, Cream Sauce
Trim off the outer leaves, cut off the stalk, clean and wash well a fine, large, firm head white cauliflower. Have a gallon of water in a large saucepan with a gill of milk and a tablespoon salt, and as soon as the water boils add the cauliflower, cover the pan and let cook for forty minutes. Remove, drain well, dress on a vegetable dish, pour a hot cream sauce over and serve.
A straightforward boiled cauliflower with béchamel, from an era when vegetables were cooked far longer than we would now. Two things need adjusting: the time and the sauce, which the original assumes you already know how to make.
- The forty minutesA whole head of cauliflower is tender in 12 to 18 minutes in boiling water, depending on size; a knife should slide into the thickest part of the core with slight resistance. Forty minutes gives grey, sulphurous mush and is the single change worth making.
- A gill of milkHalf a cup. The milk is there to keep the curd white rather than to flavour it, and it works — a little milk or a squeeze of lemon in the water discourages the yellowing that alkaline tap water causes.
- The gallon of waterFour quarts is generous but deliberate: a large volume returns to the boil fast and keeps the head from crowding. A tablespoon of salt in four quarts is a mild brine, about right for vegetables.
- The cream sauceNot given here; the recipe assumes a standard white sauce: 2 tablespoons butter and 2 tablespoons flour cooked together without colouring, then 1 cup milk or half milk and half cooking water whisked in, simmered until it coats a spoon, seasoned with salt, white pepper and a scrape of nutmeg. Make it while the cauliflower boils and keep it warm off direct heat.
- DrainingDrain the head stalk-side up for a minute or two in the colander. Water trapped in the core will run out under the sauce and thin it on the plate.
- Whole or in floretsThe recipe treats the head as a single presentation piece, which is why it goes into the pot whole. Broken into florets it cooks in 5 to 8 minutes; the sauce quantity stays the same.
- YieldOne large head with a cup of sauce serves four as a side dish.
Cauliflower dressed whole under a white sauce is a familiar set piece of European vegetable cookery, and boiled cauliflower under white sauce was as much a British and American commonplace as a French one. The trick of adding milk to the cooking water is old and practical: cauliflower discolours in hard, alkaline water, and a white head was what cooks aimed at. The insistence on a firm white head and the whole-head presentation also reflect a period when vegetables were served as a separate course rather than crowded onto the meat plate.