The other day, we walked past a field of cauliflower in the green belt of Rome called Casaletto. Not that it was clear they were cauliflowers to begin with, so tight were the pale green leaves protecting most of the heads, although a few were visible, staring out like ghostly white faces. In her Vegetable Book, Jane Grigson describes seeing a man near the city of Nicosia in Cyprus carrying a cauliflower so big that he couldn’t get his arm around it. It’s a shame she never met Peter Glazebrook of Halam in Nottinghamshire, who in 2014 entered the Guinness World Records with his 27.48kg cauliflower.
The cauliflower is a variety of the common cabbage with arrested inflorescence. That is to say, a cabbage whose flowers were starting to form, but got interrupted at the bud stage, resulting in dense “curds”, which are most commonly white, but can also be luminous green, purple, orange, yellow and brown. Broccoli is arrested in much the same way, and I can’t help but feel a little sorry for both inhibited vegetables.
Pity aside, the interruption means that all the nutrient energy and goodness intended for flowering remains in a cauliflower’s thick, creamy stems, making them particularly rich in nutrients: vitamins C and B6, and useful quantities of folate, protein and fibre. The stems also hold organic compounds called glucosinolates, which contain the sulphur volatiles responsible for both the mild, mustard-like heat when you chew raw cauliflower and the sulphurous aromas released when you cook the florets in boiling water, which all too quickly turns to the steam that fills the kitchen with a sulphuric pong or sulphuric goodness, depending on your point of view.
I tend to think of it is as sulphuric goodness, but even so, I am glad to have lived for a period with a Swedish weather presenter who was also an expert at dealing with cooking smells, and who showed me several ways to (try to) deal with the scent of cooking cauliflower. The first is to strike a match or four (a trick that also works with farts, incidentally). Alternatively, you can add a couple of bay leaves or a bit of milk to the cooking water, or boil another pan of half-water and half-vinegar at the back of the stove.
Or you could put a bay leaf and 50ml whole milk in a small pan or terracotta dish along with 50g cubed melting cheese (such as fontina, gruyere or cheddar), 20g parmesan and 50g cream cheese, then melt them gently, stirring constantly, over a low flame. This doesn’t really mask the smell, but it does make a lovely, soft sauce – somewhere between a fonduta and cheese bechamel – which can be poured over boiled cauliflower, especially if it’s been mashed, mixed with breadcrumbs and cheese and shaped into polpette, which is one of the most delicious ways to serve cauliflower.
The polpette are versatile, too, and can be cooked in three ways: shallow-fried, deep-fried or baked. Shallow-frying involves slightly flattening the balls, so they’ll cook more evenly. Deep-frying requires immersing the balls in a few inches of hot sunflower or other suitable oil until lightly golden, then lifting on to kitchen or blotting paper. Or bake them at 180C (160C fan)/350F/gas 4 for 20 minutes, or until lightly golden.
Thanks to the addition of cream cheese, the sauce should stay quite liquid even when it has cooled slightly, but it really is best served piping hot and poured over the polpette like a heavy blanket.
Cauliflower polpette with cheese sauce
Serves 4
1 small cauliflower (trimmed weight about 600g), broken into florets
Salt and pepper
1 garlic clove, peeled and minced
2 tsp very finely chopped parsley
1 whole egg, plus 1 egg yolk
50g grated cheese (parmesan or similar)
Nutmeg, to taste
Salt and black pepper
50g dried breadcrumbs, plus extra if needed
For the cheese sauce
1 bay leaf
50ml milk
50g melting cheese (fontina or cheddar, say), cubed
20g parmesan, grated
50g cream cheese
Boil the cauliflower florets in salted water until just tender, then drain, tip into a bowl and mash roughly. Add the garlic, parsley, egg and egg yolk, cheese and nutmeg, then season with salt and pepper. Add enough breadcrumbs so the mixture can be formed into soft balls the size of ping-pong balls.
Make the cheese sauce by warming the milk and all the cheeses in a small pan over a very low heat, stirring constantly.
You now have three options to cook the polpette. You can either deep-fry the balls in a few inches of sunflower or other suitable oil, shallow-fry the slightly flattened balls in a frying pan, or bake them at 180C (160C fan)/350F/gas 4 for 20 minutes, or until lightly golden, then lift them on to kitchen paper. Serve, while hot, with the sauce and a salad.