Recipes: The white stuff

Published on Wednesday 15 April 2009 14:22

I DO HOPE YOU AREN'T FED UP WITH reading about cauliflower. This vegetable has been receiving rather a lot of press attention recently due to its high nutritional value. Personally, I am thrilled to see it given such a raised profile. I love eating it, in its various forms – and it knocks broccoli right off its perch.

Cauliflower has many advantages over broccoli. During the past several months it has been grown in this country, whereas broccoli is imported. And while broccoli may look more appealing (it must be the colour), I find the florets deeply disappointing. Broccoli stalks, admittedly, are invaluable for stir-frying, but the tops I think make pretty dull eating.

Cauliflower is far more exciting. Combined with chilli, it makes one of our favourite soups. It is utterly delicious steamed and combined with lemon and fat, juicy capers and eaten at room temperature or quite cold, as a salad. Then there are the numerous variations on a plain cauliflower cheese, which turn this comfort dish into a main course rather than an accompanying vegetable.

Cauli is delicious with all meat, fish and chicken. But, when you buy it, avoid any limp-leaved veg with brown bits on the leaves. The cauliflower within must be tight and pearly white in appearance – there should be no brown speckling.

Steamed, rather than boiled in water, cauliflower is quite one of my favourite vegetables. The nutritional properties are a bonus!

CHILLI AND CAULIFLOWER SOUP

This freezes beautifully.

SERVES 6

3 tablespoons olive oil

3 onions, skinned and chopped

2 medium-sized cauliflowers

1 whole dried chilli – more, if you like

11/2 pints/850ml chicken or vegetable stock

1 teaspoon salt

about 20 grinds of black pepper

a grating of nutmeg

2 tablespoons finely chopped parsley

Heat the olive oil and fry the chopped onions, stirring from time to time, for about 5 minutes or until they are completely soft and transparent.

Slice off thick parts of the stalk and most outer leaves from the cauliflowers, and chop them into chunks about 1in/2.5cm in length.

Add the chopped cauliflower to the fried onions in the saucepan and stir in the chilli and stock. Bring the liquid to simmering point, half cover the pan with its lid and simmer gently for 10-15 minutes. Stick a fork into a chunk of cauli; it is cooked when it feels soft. Take the pan off the heat and season with salt, pepper and nutmeg. When cooled, liquidise the contents of the pan until smooth. Taste, and add more salt, pepper and nutmeg if you think it is needed.

Reheat the soup to serve and, just before serving, stir the chopped parsley through it. This gives it a much more interesting appearance than serving the white soup, but beware of adding the parsley too soon because it loses its bright, fresh colour if it sits too long in the heat.

CAULIFLOWER WITH CAPERS, LEMON AND CHIVES

SERVES 6

2 medium-sized cauliflowers, trimmed of leaves and thick stalks, and each broken into neat florets

For the dressing:

4 tablespoons extra virgin olive oil

finely grated rind of 2 lemons, well washed and dried before grating

1 level teaspoon salt

about 20 grinds of black pepper

1 rounded tablespoon snipped chives

3 teaspoons plump capers, drained – the best are those preserved in white wine vinegar

To make the dressing, mix together the olive oil, grated lemon rinds, salt and pepper and snipped chives together with the capers.

Steam the cauliflower florets until just tender. Tip them into a serving dish and immediately mix the caper dressing into the cooked florets as they cool – that way they absorb the flavours within the dressing. The chives will discolour slightly, but will have imparted their taste along with the capers and lemon in the dressing.

CAULIFLOWER PURE WITH SEARED SCALLOPS AND CRISPY PANCETTA

This is equally good as a first or a main course.

SERVES 4 TO 6

12 king scallops, including the vivid coral crescent that is their roe

3 tablespoons olive oil

about 20 grinds of black pepper

For the pure:

1 medium to large cauliflower, leaves trimmed off and any tough stalk cut away, the crown broken into florets

finely grated rind of 1 lemon

a good grating of dried chilli

1 level teaspoon salt

about 15 grinds of black pepper

2 tablespoons extra virgin olive oil

1 heaped tablespoon of mixed finely chopped parsley and snipped chives

4oz/110g pancetta, diced small and grilled or fried until crisp – drain off the fat

Stab the coral on each scallop and place the scallops into a wide dish. Brush them with olive oil, grind black pepper over them and leave, loosely covered, in the fridge until ten minutes before you are ready to cook them.

To cook, heat a dry saut or frying pan until very, very hot. Add the scallops, and don't be tempted to move them for 30 seconds – they sear in the extreme heat of the pan. Turn them over and cook for a further 25-30 seconds (count!) on the other side. Lift them onto a warm dish – don't stack the cooked scallops because they will continue to cook in the trapped heat.

Steam the cauliflower florets until just tender. Put the cooked cauliflower into a food processor and whiz till smooth with the grated lemon rind, grated chilli, salt and pepper. Whiz in the olive oil, then scoop the pure from the processor into a bowl. Stir in the chopped parsley and snipped chives and the crispy pancetta.

To serve, put a spoonful of the pure in the middle of the warmed plates. Arrange two seared scallops (or three, if serving as a main course) to the side of the pure. Serve warm.

When buying cauliflower, look for compact heads of white florets. Store unwashed in the fridge.