Cauliflower with buttered breadcrumbs: cooked whole in milk, with butter, crumbs and egg
A whole head of cauliflower cooked in water with milk so it stays white and smells mild, then showered with breadcrumbs browned in butter with chopped hard-boiled egg. A Polish summer dinner without meat that takes half an hour and looks on the table like something far grander. New potatoes with dill alongside.
Your own work in that: 25 min.
- Cauliflower 15 min
- Buttered crumbs with egg 10 min
Step by step
0 / 5 done
Prepare the head
First put the new potatoes on in salted water (they take about 20 minutes) and the egg to hard-boil (10 minutes). Cut the leaves off the cauliflower and carve a cone out of the stem with a small knife, leaving the florets joined. Soak the head 10 minutes in cold salted water if you suspect insects, then rinse.
Ingredients: 1 pcs cauliflower · 250 ml milk · 1500 ml water · 2 tsp salt · 1 tsp sugar
TipThe hollowed stem isn't decoration: the thickest part of the head takes longest to cook, and cutting the cone evens its time out with the florets. Without it either the stem is hard or the florets fall apart.
Stem hollowed, florets left joined
Cook in water with milk
In a wide pot bring the water, milk, salt and sugar to the boil. Put in the cauliflower stem down and cook with the lid ajar 12–15 minutes, until a knife slides into the stem without resistance and the florets are still springy. Start testing at 10 minutes.
TipMilk in the water is an old home trick for a white cauliflower with a mild smell. Timing matters just as much: overcooked cauliflower turns grey and smells of cabbage, so start testing it with a knife at 10 minutes.
Water with milk, stem down, a quarter hour
Brown the crumbs in butter
Melt the butter in a pan, wait for the foaming to stop, add the breadcrumbs and fry 3 minutes over medium heat, stirring constantly, until golden and nutty-smelling.
Ingredients: 80 g butter · 5 tbsp breadcrumbs · 1 pcs egg · ½ bunch flat-leaf parsley · ½ tsp black pepper
Three minutes, constant stirring
Add the egg and parsley
Take the pan off the heat and stir in the finely chopped hard-boiled egg, the parsley and pepper. The egg goes in off the heat: fried on in a hot pan it dries out and turns rubbery.
Egg off the heat, parsley, pepper
Drain and serve
Lift the cauliflower out carefully with two slotted spoons, let it drain 2 minutes (a wet head soaks the crumbs), set it on a plate and shower it with the buttered crumbs. Drain the potatoes and scatter them with chopped dill. Serve at once.
Ingredients: 800 g new potatoes · ½ bunch dill
Drained, showered, straight to the table
Before you start
In florets
A head broken into florets cooks in only 6–8 minutes. Faster, but you lose the whole head in the middle of the table.
Baked
Pour béchamel over the cooked cauliflower, scatter cheese and bake 15 minutes at 200 °C: cauliflower cheese, the version for a cooler day.
It fell apart in the pot
Cooked too long, or the boil too hard. The water should barely bubble, and you start testing with a knife at ten minutes; the florets should still resist a little.
Nutrition
per 100 gStep photos are computer-generated from the recipe.
