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Cauliflower, Hollandaise
Cut off the stalk and outer branches of a fresh, good-sized white cauliflower. Neatly trim all around. Have half a gallon water with a gill of milk and a tablespoon salt in a large saucepan, and when boiling add the cauliflower. Cover the pan and briskly boil for forty minutes. Remove, drain, dress on a dish with a folded napkin, and serve with the Hollandaise sauce separately.
A short, plain instruction for boiled cauliflower served whole, with hollandaise passed at the table. Only the cooking time really needs rethinking.
- Forty minutes is the problemA trimmed head boiled that long collapses into grey mush and turns sulphurous. A whole medium head is tender at 12-15 minutes; florets need 5-7. Test the thickest part of the core with a knife tip.
- A gillHalf a cup. Milk in the water was traditionally believed to keep the curd white; in practice the clouded water mainly masks discolouration. A tablespoon of lemon juice or flour was used to the same end.
- Half a gallon of waterEight cups, with a tablespoon of salt, which is a properly seasoned boil rather than an error. Use a pan wide enough for the head to sit submerged without wedging.
- The napkinA folded linen napkin on the serving dish absorbs draining water so the sauce is not thinned at the table. A warmed plate and thorough draining, head stem-down for a minute, achieves the same thing.
- The sauce is elsewhereThe book assumes you will turn to its hollandaise entry. Any standard emulsion of egg yolk, butter and lemon works; make it while the cauliflower boils and hold it barely warm, as hollandaise breaks above roughly 160F.
- YieldA good-sized head will serve about four.
Boiling a cauliflower whole and sending it to table on a folded napkin with a sauceboat alongside is standard nineteenth-century service, and it explains the fussy trimming: the head is the centrepiece, so it has to look like one. Hollandaise, despite the name, is generally traced through French professional cookery, where it was long classed as one of the small group of warm emulsified sauces built on egg yolk and butter; earlier English cookbooks often print a plainer melted-butter sauce for the same dish. The long boiling time reflects a period taste for vegetables cooked thoroughly soft.