La Platicona Habla: Tastes, Passions and Pursuits

After attending a garden party recently, I just couldn't resist asking the host for her cauliflower salad recipe. Cauliflower, that beautiful creamy floret, was bathed in a lemon parsley pesto and then dotted with sicilian green olives. While my host gave me the ingredients, I didn't ask for the exact portions, so I made them up (as usual). Feel free to tinker with this dish, serving it warm or cold, and adding different herbs if you have them.

You will need:
- 1 head of cauliflower, washed and cut into small pieces
- 1 lemon, juiced
- 1 clove garlic
- 1 chile piquin
- 1/2 bunch of Italian parsley
- 1 shallot or 1/4 white onion
- 8 large green olives for the pesto and 10 for the salad roughly chopped (I used green sicilian olives, but you can use kalamata too)
- salt & pepper to taste
- 1/2 c of olive oil

Step One: Place the cauliflower florets in a heated stock pot with 1/2 c of water and a pinch of salt. Cover the pan and cook over medium-high heat for 5-7 minutes until cauliflower softens. The texture you are looking for should be slightly crunchy as this is a salad, not a soup mush.
Remove, drain, rinse under cold water and set aside.

Step Two: In a blender, combine the parsley, garlic, chile, onion, 8 olives, and lemon juice. Slowly drizzle in the olive oil until totally incorporated.

Step Three: Bathe the cauliflower in the pesto and add the remaining olives to them. Serve warm or cold with a side of pasta or good bread and a salad.

Labels: cauliflower, Italian parsley, lemon, olives, salad

Cauliflower is a delicious immature flower that is often under-used in many people's culinary arsenal. Often served raw on vegetable platters, this delicate plant is never given center stage of any good meal I've ever had. Cauliflower is part of the cabbage family and is a native plant to Italy dating from the 16th century. The plant's creamy color is produced by tying the leaves of the plant around the head or crowns and preventing the plant from sunlight that would normally produce a more yellow color in the plant.

I decided to buy a crown of cauliflower recently and searched high and low for a way to prepare it that didn't involve pork or milk. Thanks to Lidia Matticchio Bastianich, I have made a wonderfully simple and elegant meal from this noble plant.

You will need: one 16 ounce can of whole peeled tomatoes; 1/2 small white onion finely diced; 3 cloves of crushed garlic; 2 bay leaves; 1 crown of cauliflower washed and cut into small 1 inch florettes; 1 chile piquin pepper; handful of chopped flat leafed Italian parsley; 4 cups of cooked penne pasta.

Step One: Cook your penne pasta according to the directions on the packet; drain; rinse in cold water and drizzle with olive oil; set aside. (Cook this while you cook the other ingredients below so pasta is not too cold)

Step Two: While your pasta cooks, saute the onions and garlic in 3 tblsp of olive oil over medium heat. Optional: when translucent, cool off with 1/4 c of white wine.

Step Three: Add cauliflower, bay leaves, and crush red chile over the mixture and season with salt. Cover and cook for 5 minutes.

Step Four: Meanwhile, take tomatoes and crush them in a bowl with your hands, removing the cores of the tomatoes. Pour this mixture into the pan, stir, cover, and cook over medium heat for another 15 minutes.

Step Five: Stir in the penne pasta and parsley. Garnish with romano or freshly grated parmesan cheese. Serve piping hot.

Labels: cauliflower, pasta, tomatoes