Cauliflower Cheese: food of the gods ?

I have a brassica-phobic in my household.  He'll eat broccoli but hates cabbage, cauliflower and especially Brussels sprouts.   I serve all these up regularly despite this and he does show willing and eat them, but under sufferance and not with enjoyment. The exception to this dislike is Cauliflower Cheese.

Romanesco Cauliflower

I do add a few other ingredients when I make Cauliflower Cheese which means it's not quite just plain cauliflower served with a cheese sauce. It also means that it's not a vegetarian dish as I add bacon.

I use cauliflower, flour, butter, milk, water, cheese, bacon, leeks and a crushed bag of crisps (vital for a crispy topping!).  I once used a pink cauliflower and produced 'Barbie Pink Cauliflower Cheese' which delighted my daughter, and I have used an amazing fractal green Romanesco cauliflower  which always seems a bit of a shame as you cover the fractals with a Cheese sauce.  I also commonly add Broccoli to the Cauliflower to make Broccoli and Cauliflower cheese.

Pink Cauliflower

I have many other variations of what goes in and on the dish too, I have added frozen sweetcorn and peas, all sorts of cheeses, made it into a kind of savoury crumble with cheesy breadcrumbs sprinkled on top, and made it without the bacon, leeks or even a cauliflower.  I also usually try to use the Broccoli/Cauliflower stalks in the dish rather than throwing them in the compost bin.

Because it has other ingredients, the Cauliflower cheese I make is a one dish meal in one, you could serve it with other vegetables and it can just be a side dish itself, but for me it is usually the main attraction.

A few notes about the ingredients.  Firstly, the Flour.  I use Self Raising flour for making this cheese sauce.  Quite by accident I used Self Raising rather than plain flour once and discovered that it made the sauce seem so much thicker and creamier than using plain flour.  Secondly, the Crisps for the topping.  This is a tip from my childhood, I remember my mum using crisps on top of our cauliflower cheeses to make a crispy topping, but you can tweak the flavours around slightly and get a smoky bacon or oniony scented topping as an added extra by using cheese and onion or bacon crisps. Thirdly, the Bacon. I tend to use thick sliced unsmoked lean bacon from the butcher but it's up to you.

So, Cauliflower Cheese makes cauliflower the king, it's a great winter supper dish, and for us a real family favourite.  My daughter reckons that if the classical gods had lived in Wales and known about Cauliflower cheese then they would have preferred it to Ambrosia but I'm not sure about that..........

 

Cauliflower Cheese 

for 4-6(ish) as a main meal

• Turn the oven on to about 180 degrees
• Chop your 2 Cauliflowers (or your Broccoli head or what ever variation you are using) into medium sized florets
• peel the outer coating from the stalks and cut the tasty hearts of the stalk into 1 cm thick rounds, discard any dry or brown parts.
• put the florets and stalk slices in your over pan steamer and steam for about 5-7 minutes until al-dente (not mushy), or you can boil them instead
• retain the water from the steamer and drain the cauliflower, and spread the florets and stalk bits over the bottom of a large oven proof lasagna type dish
• chop the 4-6 bacon rashers into 1cm squares
• wash and chop the 2 leeks into thin-ish rounds (under 1cm thick)
• and fry the bacon in a large saucepan with a little olive oil until cooked, then add a good knob of butter to the pan
• add the leek rounds to the pan and stir around until softened (about 5 minutes?)
• add another big knob of  butter to the pan and once melted add about 4 heaped dessertspoons of self raising flour and stir to make a roux which will cling to the bacon and leeks
• slowly add the hot water from the steamer and some milk bit by bit and stir in to the roux to make a sauce, the amount of liquid you will need will vary but you will need approx 2-2.5 pints in total
• add a teaspoon of smooth french mustard and some salt, pepper and a good amount of ground nutmeg to the sauce as you desire
• allow the sauce to cook and thicken over a medium heat for at least 10 minutes,
• grate a big lump of cheddar cheese (or whatever cheese you have) and put half of it into the sauce to melt (retain the over half of the grated cheese)
• add more liquid to the sauce if necessary, or turn up the heat if it is too runny to reduce it down a little
• once ready, pour the sauce over the florets and stalks waiting in the lasagna dish making sure you cover them fully with the sauce
• open your packet of crisps slightly to let the air out, hold this end closed and crush the crisps in the packet with your other hand into crisp crumbs (my children love doing this)
• sprinkle the crisps evenly all over the top of the cauliflower and sauce and then over with the remaining grated cheese
• put in the oven and allow to cook for about 15-20 minutes - mainly to crisp up the topping and make it golden.
• serve