Serious Eats: Recipes
Dinner Tonight: Pasta with Cauliflower and Anchovies
[Photograph: Nick Kindelsperger]
When I first spied this dish in Saveur, I thought I was looking at some ground meat pasta sauce, and not one littered with cauliflower. I mean, where did it all go? I'm used to seeing nice large florets in my cauliflower dishes, not these finely chopped pieces. They looked like they could disappear into the sauce at any moment.
It's kind of amazing to see the vegetable used in a different way, and if you love cauliflower like I do, you'll definitely appreciate the nutty aroma. But it's really the anchovies and saffron that steal the show.
Two tablespoons of anchovies may not sound like that much, but they imbue every forkful of this dish with a rich, fishy funk. If that weren't enough, the saffron confuses the palate, sending taste buds in all kids of odd directions. It's exciting and racy, but it may be a tad too much. It's a brash event to eat this dish, which is not something I usually say about a cauliflower dish.