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Cauliflower Salad
Cut off stalk, trim outer leaves of a large, sound white head of cauliflower; detach bouquets from stalk, plunge in two quarts boiling water with a gill milk and a teaspoon salt and boil twenty-five minutes. Drain on a sieve and let thoroughly cool off. Place bouquets in a bowl, season with four light tablespoons dressing, carefully mix without breaking the pieces and serve.
A straightforward boiled-and-dressed vegetable salad; the only real decisions are how long to cook the florets and what dressing to use.
- A gillHalf a cup (4 fl oz). The milk keeps the cauliflower white by softening the effect of hard water and any sulphur discolouration; it does not flavour the finished salad.
- Twenty-five minutes is too longThat timing belongs to an era that liked vegetables thoroughly soft. Florets cut to an even size are tender in 5 to 8 minutes in salted boiling water. Test with a knife tip at five minutes.
- "Bouquets"Florets. The word follows the French usage bouquets de chou-fleur; the recipe's instruction to detach them from the stalk and mix "without breaking the pieces" suggests neat clusters rather than chopped pieces.
- CoolingSpread the drained florets in a single layer rather than heaping them in the sieve; piled hot cauliflower steams itself soft and weeps water into the dressing. A brief plunge into cold water then a thorough drain works well.
- The dressingThe recipe does not say which dressing is meant; an oil-and-vinegar French dressing is the likeliest reading for a cold vegetable salad of this kind. Four light tablespoons is a modest amount for a large head; dress just before serving.
- MixingFold with a rubber spatula or your hands. Boiled cauliflower crumbles under a spoon, and the crumbs cloud the dressing.
- YieldThe recipe gives no yield; a large head would serve roughly four to six as a side salad.
Cauliflower reached the French and English kitchen from Italy in the sixteenth and seventeenth centuries — an older English name was "Cyprus colewort," said to nod to its eastern Mediterranean route — and by the nineteenth century it was among the more prized members of the cabbage family. Serving it cooked, cooled and dressed with oil and vinegar rather than smothered in white sauce follows the French treatment, the same logic that produces haricots verts or leeks vinaigrette. The milk in the cooking water is a kitchen trick of the same period, recommended as a way to keep boiled cauliflower from turning dull.