Last night, I once again found myself facing the intimidation of a recipe in Mastering The Art Of French Cooking. Why am I intimidated? Hell if I know. As much as I hate it, I seem to bob up and down in a fear marinade more often than not. (Full disclosure: I’m a glass half empty man and see the possibility of failure before that of success.)
Anyway…I had a hankering for cauliflower. But I didn't want just any old cauliflower. I wanted cauliflower mash. For an easily intimidated, living-in-fear kind of guy, it didn't seem to bother me too much that I'd never prepared a cauliflower mash. Honestly, I don't think I imagined it being too difficult, therefore I don't think I imagined myself failing to successfully produce it. Hmm??
I Googled "Cauliflower Mash" and found a recipe on allrecipes.com that sounded tasty, and was above all else, simple: steamed cauliflower, sautéd garlic, cream cheese, Parmesan cheese, salt, pepper. I had no doubts. I could make this. But me being me, I wasn't satisfied with this simple recipe from allrecipes.com. No. I needed to see what Julia (Ms. Child, if you’re nasty!) had to say about cauliflower.
Turns out, there are several recipes for cauliflower in the index of her magnum opus about French cooking. The one for Chou-Fleur en Verdure (Purée of Cauliflower and Water Cress with Cream) seemed to me to align interestingly with the recipe from allrecipes.com. I felt I could combine what I liked from the dot com recipe, and what I liked from the Mastering recipe, and create something uniquely my own. You may be sensing confidence here, but trust me when I tell you, the intimidation reemerged from its momentary sedation.
If you've ever perused a copy of Mastering The Art Of French Cooking, you know that the recipes are meticulously laid out for you, step by step. (Julia even suggests the utensil to use or the type of pot, depending upon what you're making. It's amazing.) This thoroughness should be comforting. And for the most part it is. Except for those occasions when I simply don't understand a specific direction. Remember, just because a plan is carefully laid out doesn't mean that everyone is going to execute it.
As I read through the recipe for Purée of Cauliflower, I began to merge it with the recipe I had discovered earlier. For instance, I decided to steam the cauliflower instead boiling it in salted water. I also had no desire to add the water cress so I nixed that. I also liked the idea of Parmesan cheese instead the Swiss, which Julia suggests.
Proceeding on, I discovered that Julia's Chou-Fleur recipe called for béchamel sauce. I had heard of béchamel sauce before, but I must admit that I had no idea what it actually was. But Julia being Julia, she provided me the page number for where I could find the recipe for that sauce, which I knew would replace the cream cheese component of the simpler recipe. (What is this…Michael’s Test Kitchen?)
You realize that that meant I had to make the sauce, right? As one who is afraid to fail—even in front of himself—I could feel myself fighting against my nature to cower under the weight of this new task. Regardless, to page 57 I turned.
There I found two recipes: Sauce Béchamel and Sauce Velouté. They are both white sauces. And I later learned they are two of the five "mother sauces" of French cuisine. (The other three are: espagnole, tomato and hollandaise, in case you're interested. Personally, I can’t wait to panic while making the hollandaise.)
Mashed cauliflower is supposed to be a healthier alternative to mashed potatoes: less calories, less carbs. And as mashed potatoes call for milk and butter, I presumed the béchamel sauce, which uses milk, would be a fantastic option. But the velouté sauce also seemed interesting to me. This sauce uses stock as its liquid. I had chicken stock in the refrigerator. I didn't have milk. I don't use cow milk much anymore for anything in my life, choosing oat milk instead. And it seemed, well, wrong to use oat milk for this sauce. So, my decision to make the velouté sauce stemmed purely from a place of convenience: use what was already in the fridge versus something that I would have to buy and then might not use again. Pas cher? Peut-être. Raisonnable? Souvent.
For chicken stock that you don't actually prepare yourself from scratch, Julia offers a suggestion, which she calls a treatment. Add onion, carrots, celery, sprigs of parsley, some leaf of bay, a pinch of thyme, and the finishing touch of dry white wine or vermouth to the broth. Her measurements are specific and her "suggestion" is to simmer this for 30 minutes, season it to taste, strain it, then use.
I hadn't paid close enough attention to these instructions before heading to my local supermarket and therefore did not buy the parsley or the thyme. Also, the vermouth I had in my cabinet had gone hella bad. No worries though. I had a bottle of French Chardonnay chilling in the fridge, and Chardonnay falls into the category of dry white wines. I don't know what the parsley and thyme might have added to this broth, but I can tell you, it smelled wonderful and tasted delicious.
Moving on, it was time to make the roux. I have no idea how my mother and grandmother managed to prepare entire meals so that everything was ready to be placed on the table at the same time. I have not quite figured out timing yet.
The Chou-Fleur recipe called for a thicker béchamel sauce than the master recipe, so the measurements for the amount of butter and flour used to make the roux were increased, while maintaining the 2 cups for the liquid. While the 3½ Tb of salted butter slowly melted in the copper bottom saucepan, its bouquet wafted into the air. Butter, y'all. Yum!
I added the 5 Tb of flour into the gently foaming butter—probably more quickly than Julia would have liked—and whisked the two ingredients together until I had a thick roux. One thing I will add here: the recipe says to melt the butter over low heat, blending in the flour, cooking slowly while stirring, until the butter and flour froth together. I did all of this, aside from probably adding the flour in to quickly, but it did not froth. There was no frothing. I was concerned, but since I had previously made a roux, I didn't let it stress me. Surprised?
The stock, covered and boiling, was sitting at a hands-grab distance on the burner behind the roux. It was time. I added the 2 cups of boiling stock to the roux, continued to whisk it, and watched as it thickened into a bubbling cream. I did it. I made Sauce Velouté. I was—and am—proud. I tasted it before adding it to the mashed and waiting bowl of cauliflower. It definitely needed salt. But I knew the dish as a whole would need salt so I didn't worry about that.
I gently folded the sauce, little by little, into the cauliflower. I then added a half cup of whipping cream and continued to fold. The mixture was thick and creamy. I then added a half cup of Parmesan cheese (the dot com recipe called for ¼ cup) and the sliced mushrooms I had sautéd earlier in butter and olive oil. My own addition to this dish. With a dash or two of black pepper and a sprinkling of Himalayan pink salt now incorporated, it was time to taste.
Delicious does not do it justice. It was rich and buttery, creamy yet textured. I can’t imagine this dish without that sauce or the mushrooms. However, I am curious about the milk-based béchamel sauce. So, maybe next time, I compare.
I should have stopped right there. And I will the next time I prepare this dish. But Mastering The Art called for mixing bread crumbs with grated cheese and sprinkling it on top, pouring two Tb of melted butter over that, then baking at 375º until the cheese and bread crumbs had browned.
I had forgotten the bread crumbs at the supermarket, but thought the cheese would brown anyway, so why not. The cheese melted and the additional butter bubbled, but none of it browned. The consistency also changed. The stiffness it had held in the bowl had weakened to a more liquid state than I would have preferred. Not quite soupy, but lesson learned.
No bother though. I served it in a bowl instead of on a plate. The plate was reserved for the green beans and Brussels sprouts, which I had steamed then dressed in another Tb of butter and a dash or five of garlic salt.
The wine was the same French Chardonnay that I'd used for the stock. I had seconds on the cauliflower and thirds on the wine.
Bon appetit !
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