March and the flexible friend of vegetables: cauliflower
| Tweet |
There’s a school of thought that says the amount of time people spend watching cookery programs is inversely proportional to the time they spend cooking. In other words, the more TV we watch, the less we cook. In a general sense, they probably have a point. But cookery programmes are one of the few genuinely useful and sometimes inspirational hours or half hours I get out of watching the box. They’re better than my other guilty pleasure – Eastenders – in any case.
So I was overjoyed when a cookery student of mine sent me a link to a soda bread recipe that she’d seen Nigel Slater making on BBC of a recent evening, and asked me if we could make bread together. I got over-excited, watched another program called the Lost Art of Bread Making or something, and set up a ludicrously over-ambitious bread workshop in which we made not only the requested soda bread, but also focaccia, pizza, chocolate-twister bread, the list goes on…
But – even better than that – during the very same cookery programme, the Hairy Bikers did a series of recipes about the humble and under-loved cauliflower, and I found myself doubly inspired.
I’d never been much of a cauliflower fan. At home I remember it being boiled, stalky and bland. But this week I have eaten almost nothing but cauliflower (if you live by yourself, a whole cauliflower is intimidatingly large), and have found it to be quite the definition of a flexible friend.
Cauliflower puree, scallops, prosciutto
On Sunday (replete with hangover – and you’ll be amazed that I managed to make this with a hangover), I puréed it with a touch of cream and gruyère, and topped it with prosciutto and seared scallops in a rather cheffy-looking way. On a square plate, no less.
Aloo gobi
On Monday, I turned it into aloo gobi (potato and cauliflower curry), whose second helpings made a reappearance today at work for lunch.
Ultimate cauli-mac cheese
And on Tuesday, I made the Ultimate Cauli-Mac Cheese: macaroni cheese and cauliflower cheese, all rolled into one, with extra bacon for good measure. Having already had cauliflower for lunch, I think I’d better freeze the leftovers of that one…
It seems television isn’t so bad for you after all… hurrah!
Vicky
