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Cauliflower with Balsamella
(Cavolfiore colla balsamella) Remove from a good sized cauliflower the external leaves and the green ribs, make a deep cut crosswise in the stalk and cook it in salted water. Then cut it in sections and brown with butter, salt and pepper. Put it in a baking tin, throw over a small pinch of grated cheese, cover with the balsamella (No. 54) and brown the surface.
Serve this cauliflower as an entremets or as a side-dish with boiled chicken or a stew. 112
A short recipe that assumes you already know how to make a white sauce; nearly all the judgement lies in not overcooking the cauliflower before it goes under the balsamella.
- Balsamella (No. 54)This is the Italian spelling of béchamel: butter and flour cooked to a pale roux, then milk whisked in and simmered until it coats a spoon. For one large head you want about 1 1/2 to 2 cups, on the thick side, since the cauliflower will release moisture in the oven.
- Boil it shortThe head is cooked in salted water, then cut up and browned in butter, then baked. Take it out of the water while the stalk still meets some resistance; because it goes in whole it will need longer than loose florets would, and if it is cooked through at this stage it will collapse into a wet mash under the sauce.
- The cross-cut in the stalkCutting deeply crosswise into the core helps the dense stem cook at closer to the same rate as the florets, which matters because the head goes into the water whole and is only cut into sections afterwards.
- "Brown with butter"Cut into sections and colour them in a wide pan of butter, with salt and pepper, until the edges take colour. It is what distinguishes the dish from plain boiled cauliflower under sauce.
- The cheeseThe recipe says only 'grated cheese'; Parmesan is the usual choice in this book. A pinch under the sauce and a little more on top gives a better crust; a light dusting of breadcrumbs mixed with the cheese browns more reliably.
- Oven for browningThe original does not say how the surface is to be browned. A 425F oven for 15 to 20 minutes, or 5 minutes under a broiler, gives the browned top without drying the sauce.
- Baking tinUse a shallow gratin dish just large enough to hold the sections in one layer. Deep dishes steam the cauliflower and the sauce never sets.
- YieldOne good-sized head serves four as a side dish, or three as the light course between others that entremets implies here.
This is one of the many recipes Maria Gentile drew from Pellegrino Artusi's La scienza in cucina e l'arte di mangiar bene (1891) when she compiled The Italian Cook Book for American readers in 1919, and the cross-references by number belong to that tradition of cookbooks built as linked systems rather than standalone pages. Balsamella was well established in Emilia-Romagna, where it still binds lasagne. The instruction to serve the dish as an entremets belongs to the same borrowed vocabulary: in the service of that era the term covered a dish set between the main courses.