Posted by Nick Kindelsperger, May 9, 2008 at 4:30 PM
I’ve been on a little cauliflower kick lately and just couldn’t turn down the possibility of what was essentially cauliflower mashed potatoes. Yep, it’s a holdout from the low-carb craze. But I didn’t care if it was healthy; I just wanted to see if it was worth it. I found the recipe in Ted Allen’s The Food You Want to Eat, and even he seems a little ashamed of it, regardless of the fact that it ended up being delicious.
And he’s right, the cauliflower puree never feels like a mashed potato rip-off. Instead it makes an earthier offering that’s perfect with lighter dishes like fish. To spruce up things Ted advises a few possible additions. He likes to add curry powder, English mustard, blue cheese or parmesan. I settled on the last item, adding huge grated handful at the very end. It won’t replace mashed potatoes on the Thanksgiving table, but might provide a lighter side to some grilling sessions.
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Posted by Nick Kindelsperger, April 28, 2008 at 5:00 PM
When I pulled this from the oven, I was livid. Both the cauliflower and capers came out looking awfully disappointing. And by “awfully disappointing,” I mean “burnt." I just couldn’t believe Martha Stewart, of all people, would construct such a disastrous mess of a recipe. I mean, you all can see this, right? Those little black balls are the capers. I almost chucked it right there.
Ends up all those crispy black bits are full-flavored goodness. I really should have known better. I had no use for cauliflower until I learned that it gets this wonderful nutty aroma when you roast the hell out of it. And this caper-assisted recipe is even easier than the curried version I had made before. The fiancée actually finished this before the meat course, forking up all those little black bits as quickly as possible.
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Posted by Robin Bellinger, March 19, 2008 at 2:45 PM
I didn’t discover Indian food until I was 21 and living in New York City for the first time, and I didn’t try cooking it until my husband and I started dating a few years later. His family, he explained, loved this cookbook author called Madhur Jaffrey—had I heard of her? As it happened, I was working for Knopf, her publisher, but had never taken home a copy of her 1973 classic An Invitation to Indian Cooking. Indian cooking seemed forbiddingly complicated, and besides, the current edition of the book was just a little paperback whose cover featured a campy picture of Jaffrey dressed in a sari, smiling benignly over a still life of ingredients despite the fact that we readers seem to have surprised her in the act of chopping cilantro.
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Posted by Blake Royer, December 13, 2007 at 4:15 PM
I'm on a bit of a pine nut and golden raisin kick—this is the second time this week (here's the first). The combination of sweet and tangy with fancy nuttiness is irresistible. So when I was flipping through Tyler Florence's Tyler's Ultimate
and saw this, a Sicilian-style spaghetti turned on its head, everything was decided: A quickly steamed-then-browned head of cauliflower is brightened with parsley and lemon juice (those seem to be pasta-brightening standbys), made airy by crisp panko (Japanese breadcrumbs), and richened with a little anchovy that reflects that nuttiness from the pine nuts. Although if anchovies scare you, they could be skipped. And the raisins are just there for fun.
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