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Perfect Cauliflower Cheese

Chef Nigel Barden serves up the perfect cauliflower cheese and gives tips for making it at home.
Simon has more homework for you and another of your confessions.

1 hour, 55 minutes

Last on

Thu 2 Oct 2014 17:05
麻豆约拍 Radio 2

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Perfect Cauliflower Cheese

by Felicity Cloake from Perfect - 68 Essential Recipes for Every Cook鈥檚 Repertoire (Penguin / Fig-Tree)


Cauliflower Cheese has to be made with care: the top should be slightly crunchy, the cauliflower tender, but not to the point of disintegration, and the sauce agreeably piquant.


You can get too fancy 鈥� I don鈥檛 think聽the dish requires a bechamel base, as specified by Simon Hopkinson and Lindsey Bareham; that sauce鈥檚 onion and bay leaf flavours just confuse the issue.聽


Neither do I think the cook needs to fuss about the double cream, in fact better to use plain white sauce for such a nursery classic.


Tom Norrington-Davies has the right idea, co-opting this basic as the vehicle for vast amounts of cheese.聽 Lancashire, as it happens, which gives the dish a pleasant saltiness鈥� Cheddar, as suggested by Nigel Slater, is more strident.聽聽



Serves 4

Prep time聽 15 mins
Cooking time 30 mins


Ingredients
50g unsalted butter
25g plain flour
300ml milk
1/2 tsp salt
1 tsp English mustard powder
100g Lancashire cheese, grated
1 medium cauliflower, leaves removed, broken into evenly sized florets
30g breadcrumbs


Method
1. Preheat the oven to 200C/Gas 6.聽 Melt the butter in a medium pan & stir in the flour to make a roux.聽 Cook on a low heat for a couple of mins, stirring occasionally, but do not allow to colour.


2. Pour a little of the milk into the roux, & whisk to combine, then gradually add the rest in the same manner until you have a smooth liquid.聽 Cook, stirring regularly, until it has thickened enough to coat the back of a wooden spoon.聽 Remove from the heat, add the salt, mustard powder and half the cheese, and set aside.


3. Meanwhile, cook the cauliflower in a pan of salted, boiling water for 3 mins, until softened, but not cooked through.


4. Drain the cauliflower and tip into a buttered baking dish.聽 Tip over the sauce, then mix together the breadcrumbs and the rest of the cheese and scatter over the top.聽 Bake for about 30 mins, or until golden and bubbling.


Nige鈥檚 Top Tips:

  • If your cauli discolours during boiling, add a squirt of lemon juice, or 1/2 a cup of milk to the water and watch it restore itself to its former creamy glory.
  • From now until early December look out for Romanesco cauliflower, which is bright green with a cluster of incredible looking pointed spiralling cones.聽

Broadcast

  • Thu 2 Oct 2014 17:05
    麻豆约拍 Radio 2