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Cauliflower Fried with Cheese
Cut off stalk and remove outer branches of a firm white cauliflower. Drop it in three quarts boiling water with a tablespoon salt and boil thirty-five minutes. Drain, then divide cauliflower in small bouquets. Season with half teaspoon salt and two saltspoons pepper, lightly roll in flour, dip in beaten egg and then lightly roll in grated Parmesan cheese, place in a frying basket and fry in boiling fat eight minutes or until a nice golden colour. Drain on a cloth and use as directed.
A straightforward fry-up of pre-boiled cauliflower, but two of the timings in the original will work against you.
- Cut the boiling timeThirty-five minutes in salted water will reduce a cauliflower to something that collapses the moment you try to bread it. Eight to twelve minutes, until a knife meets slight resistance at the stem, is enough — the florets get a second cooking in the fryer.
- And cut the frying timeEight minutes in hot fat is far more than a cooked floret in a thin crust needs. Two to three minutes at 350-375F brings the colour; longer and the Parmesan in the coating turns bitter and dark.
- "Boiling fat"Fat does not boil; the phrase means fat brought up to frying heat, judged in the period by the shimmer and by the browning of a cube of bread. Use a thermometer and hold 350-375F.
- SaltspoonA saltspoon is a quarter teaspoon, so two saltspoons is half a teaspoon of pepper — a fair amount, and correct here against the bland cauliflower and salty cheese.
- Dry the floretsThe recipe does not say it, but flour will not stick to wet cauliflower and the coating will slide off in the fat. Drain the bouquets and let them steam dry, or blot them, before flouring.
- Grated ParmesanThis wants finely grated hard Parmesan, not the coarse shreds sold for melting, which will not adhere in a layer. Pressing the cheese on firmly after the egg dip helps it set.
- Draining"Drain on a cloth" is the period instruction; a wire rack keeps the underside crisp better than either cloth or paper, which trap steam.
- Yield and servingOne medium head will give roughly four modest portions. "Use as directed" points back to other entries in the book, so these were probably intended as a component or vegetable garnish rather than a standalone dish, though they stand perfectly well on their own with lemon.
Cauliflower boiled, broken into florets, breaded and fried is a fixture of Italian home cooking, where it turns up as cavolfiore fritto or as part of a fritto misto of mixed vegetables; the Parmesan in the coating places this version firmly in that tradition rather than the French one, which would more often finish the vegetable with butter and browned crumbs. The International Cook Book (1906) by Alexander Filippini, a Delmonico's man, was built on exactly this premise, cataloguing national dishes for an American household — and its instructions carry the marks of a hotel kitchen, including the frying basket and the closing "use as directed," which assumes the reader is working through a book of composed menus rather than cooking a single dish. The long initial boil is often said to reflect a period taste for thoroughly soft vegetables.