"Of all the flowers in the garden, I like the Cauliflower best."

Dr. Samuel Johnson.

Dr. Johnson appreciated good living, and therefore it is not surprising that he should have left on record this tribute to the most delicate and finely flavored of all the cabbage family.

Cauliflower is so rarely seen in market in the United States, except in large cities, that comparatively few of our people are accustomed to using it. On this account a variety of receipts for cooking cauliflower are here given, in order to make the methods of using this excellent vegetable more widely known. Americans, especially, need to become familiar with its use; for to the English, French, and Germans, who have known it in the Old World, it needs no introduction.

Cauliflower lends itself readily to both plain and fancy methods of cooking. It is easy of digestion, and is an especial favorite with those who, from any reason, are unable to readily digest cabbage. Besides, it is more nutritious than the cabbage, and it is not exceeded in this particular by any other garden vegetable.The following tables show the comparative composition of fresh cabbage and cauliflower, and the composition of the ash of the latter. It will be noticed that the percentage of ash and indigestible fibre is low in the cauliflower, and the amount of nitrogenous and starchy matter high.

ANALYSIS OF CABBAGE AND CAULIFLOWER.

(KÖnig's Nohrungsmittel, pp. 715, 717).

ANALYSIS OF CAULIFLOWER ASH.

(Whitner's Gardening in Florida).

Cauliflower is not wholly free from the odor which renders the cooking of cabbage so unpleasant, but in this respect it is much less objectionable than cabbage. As with cabbage, this odor is in some cases more marked than in others, depending on the character of the soil, and the quantity and nature of the manure used. A small piece of red pepper added to the water in which cauliflower or cabbage is boiled prevents to a large extent this unpleasant odor and improves their flavor. To obviate the "strong" flavor which these vegetables acquire when large quantities of stable manure are used the heads should be parboiled in the morning of the day on which they are wanted. They are then put on a hair sieve and placed in the larder. Twenty minutes before they are wanted for the table they are to be reboiled steadily until the strong taste is gone.

When cauliflowers are preserved in a shed or cellar they often become more or less wilted and strong in flavor, and can then be rendered palatable only by cutting them off from the stalks on the previous day and throwing them into cold, salted water, frequently changing it until they are wanted; in this way the heads become plumped up, and the strong disagreeable smell and taste which they have acquired is in some degree removed; but even under the most careful treatment they lose their fine, white cauliflower color.To remove any caterpillars or other insects which may have found lodgment in the cauliflower head it should be examined as carefully as possible, opening it a little if necessary. It should then be placed top down in cold salt water for an hour; or, better still, in cold water and vinegar. This is believed to be particularly effective in dislodging any insect life that may be present. If the heads seem badly infested, however, which they seldom are, the only safe way is to break them up before cooking.

In cooking the heads whole, which is a favorite method, care is needed not to boil too long, so as to cause the head to come to pieces. To prevent any danger of breaking the head in cooking, it should be wrapped in cheese cloth or other similar material, in which it is to be handled.

Cauliflower is in season in this country from June until December, but is most abundant during the month of October. Those found in market during the hottest summer months are apt to be dark in color, somewhat strong in flavor, and filled with small leaves. Broccoli is cooked in nearly all cases precisely as cauliflower.

Porcelain lined or similarly guarded pots should be used in which to cook these vegetables, as iron is liable to impart to them a dark color.

The use of earthenware vessels in which to cook vegetables of the cabbage tribe is recommended as follows by a writer in the American Garden:"To have any of the BrassicÆ in proper flavor we must go to the German housewives and learn of them to cook cabbage, cauliflower, etc., in earthenware instead of metal. The German potters make stout boilers, like huge bean-pots, that hold six or eight cabbages, for restaurant cooking, and they are quite a different vegetable treated in this way. Try the experiment; put a cabbage in a stone jar with plenty of water, cover tight and boil till tender. I think it does not take as long to cook in this way as in ordinary kettles, the steady mild heat softening the tissues more steadily than the open boiling. And there is little or no smell to cabbage or onions cooked in a close stone pot in the oven. A cabbage baked in its own steam in such a pot and served with hot vinegar and butter is a high-flavored dish."

A writer in the Rural New Yorker sums up the prime requirements in cooking cauliflower as follows:

"Four rules never to be deviated from may be laid down: first, that the cauliflower is to be soaked in salt and water for at least a half hour before cooking, in order to drive out any insects or worms that may be lurking among the flowerets; second, (if to be boiled) when ready for cooking the vegetable is to be plunged into salted, thoroughly boiling water; third, it is not to be cooked a moment after it becomes tender; fourth, to be served as soon as done. Neglect of any of these points is sure to result in failure, while a careful following of them will give a wholesome, delicate dish, and one that will be eaten with gusto and remembered with pleasure."

A very simple method of serving cauliflower is with milk and butter, after the manner of cabbage, but a more elaborate white sauce generally accompanies it. This is the familiar drawn butter sauce, to which may be added a little vinegar or lemon juice, to give piquancy of flavor. Sometimes this sauce is varied by adding milk or cream to the flour and butter, when it is called "cream sauce."

The receipts given below are chiefly from the following four recent works on cookery:

"Good Living," by Sara Van Buren BrugiÈre; G. P. Putnam's Sons, New York and London, 1890.

"The Buckeye Cook-Book"; Buckeye Publishing Company, Minneapolis, 1887.

"Our Home Cyclopedia," by Edgar S. Darling; Mercantile Publishing Company, Detroit, 1889.

"Mrs. A. B. Marshall's Cookery Book"; Marshall's School of Cookery, London, 1888.

1. Boiled (Gardener's Text Book).—The head should be cut with most of the surrounding leaves attached, which are to be trimmed off when the time comes for cooking. Let it lie half an hour in salt and water, and then boil it in fresh water for fifteen or twenty minutes, until a fork will easily enter the stem. Milk and water are better than water alone [a little sweet milk tends to keep the heads white]. Serve with sauce, gravy or melted butter.

2. Boiled (American Agriculturist).—Boil in water, slightly salted—never with meat. When tender, which will usually be with twenty minutes cooking, take up and drain and cover with drawn butter (white sauce, made with butter, flour and water) and serve hot. They are usually eaten without other addition, but some dress with pepper and vinegar—the same as they do cabbage.

3. Boiled (Good Living).—Trim off the outside leaves, leaving one row around the flower. Cut an X in the stalk. Have a large pot of boiling water on the fire. Add enough milk to whiten the water; also one level teaspoonful of salt. The cauliflower should be left in vinegar and water for twenty to thirty minutes before boiling. This system is supposed to draw out any insects that may lurk within. Drain it thoroughly; tie it loosely in a piece of cheese-cloth large enough to cover it entirely. Put it into the boiling water, which must cover it well. Let it boil until quite tender, but be careful that it does not go to pieces. As cauliflowers vary very much in size, only a general idea of the time required can be given. One of ordinary size will take about forty minutes, perhaps more. When cooked lift it out by the cheese-cloth, drain very thoroughly, and set in a round dish. Make a cream sauce (No. 42), pour it over the cauliflower, cover, and let it stand for a few minutes for the sauce to penetrate. Then serve. Or, if a handsome specimen successfully boiled, serve it in a round dish with a white sauce (No. 41) served separately in a sauce-boat. Add a squeeze of lemon juice to the sauce before serving. Small cauliflowers will not require more than thirty minutes to boil.

4. Boiled (Buckeye Cook Book).—To each two quarts of water allow a heaping teaspoon of salt; choose close and white cauliflower; trim off decayed outside leaves, and cut stock off flat at bottom. Open flower a little in places to remove insects, which are generally found around the stalk, and let cauliflowers lie with head downward in salt and water for two hours previous to dressing them, which will effectually draw out all vermin. Then put in boiling water, adding salt in above proportion, and boil briskly for fifteen or twenty minutes over a good fire, keeping saucepan uncovered. Water should be well skimmed, and when cauliflowers are tender, take up, drain, and if large enough, place upright in a dish; serve with plain melted butter, a little of which may be poured over the flowers; or a white sauce may be used, made as follows: Put butter size of an egg into saucepan, and when it bubbles stir in a scant half teacup of flour; stir well with an egg-whisk until cooked; then add two teacups of thin cream, some pepper and salt. Stir it over the fire until perfectly smooth. Pour the sauce over the cauliflower and serve. Many let the cauliflower simmer in the same sauce a few moments before serving.

Cauliflower is delicious served as a garnish around spring chicken, or with fried sweet-breads, when the white sauce should be poured over both. In this case it should be made by adding the cream, flour and seasoning to the little grease (half a teaspoon) that is left after frying the chickens or sweet-breads.

5. Baked (Buckeye Cook Book).—Prepare as for boiling, and parboil five minutes; cut into pieces and put into a pie dish; add a little milk, season with salt, pepper and butter; cover with dry, grated cheese, and bake.

6. Steamed (Mrs. M. P. A. Crozier).—Lay the nicely prepared cauliflower head in the deep dish from which it is to be served at table, sprinkle salt over it, place it in the steamer, cover closely, and steam till tender. Remove to the table, and pour over it rich, sweet cream, slightly salted and heated.7. Stewed (Gardener's Chronicle).—Cut up your cauliflower into sprigs of convenient size to serve with a tablespoon, and throw them into cold water an hour before cooking. To stew them, have a stout, iron stewpan, white-enamelled inside—an ordinary tin saucepan or boiler will hardly do. Put a large lump of butter into your stewpan as you set it over a gentle fire; instead of butter you may use the fat taken from the top of cold roast meat gravy—that of beef or veal is preferable to that of mutton. As the grease melts, stir into it an onion chopped very fine, and a little flour and water; continue stirring until the whole is nicely browned; then put in your sprigged cauliflower, adding only just enough water or broth to cook it; season lightly with pepper and salt, and a very light dust of grated nutmeg, if not disapproved; let it stew gently till perfectly tender; when done the gravy should be so reduced as to be no more in quantity than is wanted to serve as sauce with the vegetable; for this reason the salt must be used with great moderation, otherwise, by concentration, the gravy would be converted into brine; transfer the cauliflower from the stewpan to a hot dish, and pour the reduced gravy over it.

Note that by this method nothing is lost. The natural and nutritive juices of the vegetable, the sugar and albumen, are retained instead of being drawn out and diluted by boiling in several pints of water, and consequently wasted and thrown away. Note also that this receipt is founded (like the directions for many other good dishes) on the roux—flour browned in butter—which is one of the grand elements in French cookery.

8. Stewed (Mr. S. J. Soyer[E]).—Cauliflower butter, salt, sugar, two and one-third ounces of flour, half a pint of cream, one-eighth of the soup from the cauliflower.

The cauliflower is cut into pieces, boiled slightly in salted water, taken out of the soup and put on a colander to drain. The butter and flour are baked together and thinned with the cream, and about the quantity of the soup above stated. The cauliflower is put into this sauce and again brought to a boil, whereupon it is served warm.

9. Escalloped (Rural New Yorker).—Place a layer of the parboiled flowerets in a pudding dish, and cover them with cream sauce enough to moisten, with the addition of a little grated cheese, usually Parmesian; this is to be followed by another layer of this vegetable, and the whole covered with bread crumbs dotted with bits of butter.

10. Escalloped (Buckeye Cook Book).—Boil till tender, drain well, and cut in small pieces; put in layers, with fine chopped egg, and this dressing: Half pint milk, thickened over boiling water, with two tablespoons flour and seasoned with two teaspoons salt, one of white pepper and two tablespoons butter; put grated bread over the top; dot it with small bits of butter and place it in the oven to heat thoroughly and brown. Serve in same dish in which it was baked. This is a good way to use common heads.

A nicer way is to boil them, then place them whole in a buttered dish with stems down. Make sauce with a cup of bread crumbs beaten to froth with two tablespoons melted butter and three of cream or milk, one well-beaten egg, and salt and pepper to taste. Pour this over the cauliflower, cover dish tightly, and bake six minutes in a quick oven, browning them nicely. Serve as above.

11. With Stuffing (Home Cyclopedia).—Take a saucepan, the exact size of the dish intended to be used. Cleanse a large, firm, white cauliflower, and cut into sprigs, throw those into boiling salt water for two minutes; then take them out, drain, and pack them tightly with the heads downward, in the saucepan, the bottom of which must have been previously covered with thin slices of bacon; fill up the vacant spaces with a stuffing made of three tablespoonfuls of finely minced veal, the same of beef suet, four tablespoonfuls of bread crumbs, a little pepper and salt, a teaspoonful of chopped parsley, a teaspoonful of minced chives and a dozen small mushrooms, chopped fine. Strew these ingredients over the cauliflowers in alternate layers and pour over them three well-beaten eggs. When these are well soaked add sufficient nicely-flavored stock to cover the whole; simmer gently till the cauliflowers are tender, and the sauce very much reduced; then turn the contents of the saucepan upside down on a hot dish, and the cauliflowers will be found standing in a savory mixture.

12. With Sauce (Home Cyclopedia).—Boil a large cauliflower—tied in netting—in hot salted water, from twenty-five to thirty minutes; drain, serve in a deep dish with the flower upwards, and pour over it a cup of drawn butter in which has been stirred the juice of a lemon and a half teaspoonful of French mustard, mixed up well with the sauce.

13. With Curry Sauce (Mrs. Marshall).—Blanch (see note to No. 19) and plain boil the cauliflower for fifteen to twenty minutes till tender, then cut it up into nice long pieces, each sufficient for one person; place the pieces in a sautÉ pan and pour the curry sauce (as for curry Á la simla) over them; let it boil up, and then draw the pan to the side of the stove and let it stay there for ten or twelve minutes; dish the pieces up in the form of cutlets, pour the sauce over them, and garnish round the cauliflower with little bunches of grated cocoanut which have been warmed between two plates over boiling water. This is an excellent dish for luncheon or second course, or it may be served in place of an entrÉe.

14. With Tomato Sauce (Good Living).—Having boiled a medium-sized cauliflower, very carefully as directed (No. 3) place it on a round dish, after having thoroughly drained it. Have ready a rich tomato sauce (No. 40) pour it around (not over) the cauliflower, and serve as a separate course. This is a very pretty dish.

15. With Tomato Sauce (Good Health).—Boil or steam the cauliflower until tender. In another dish prepare a sauce by heating a pint of strained stewed tomatoes to boiling, thickening with a tablespoonful of flour, and salting to taste. When the cauliflower is tender, dish, and pour over it the hot tomato sauce.

16. With Mushrooms (Buckeye Cook Book).—Put in a frying pan, in hot fat, a few small mushrooms and part of a cauliflower, broken into sprigs. Sprinkle over them some grated cheese, and baste the whole well from time to time with the hot fat.

17. With Brussels Sprouts (Mr. S. J. Soyer).—Cauliflower, Brussels sprouts, dotter of egg, butter, a tablespoonful of cream, half a pint of sauce for vegetables, potato purÉ—that is, bouillon thickened with mashed potatoes and strained.

Both cauliflower and sprouts are to be well cleaned, boiled separately in salt water and served on the purÉ, the cauliflower in the centre and the sprouts around it for garnishing. The sauce, to which is added the egg dotters, butter and cream, is poured hot over the cauliflower and sprouts.

18. Au Gratin (Good Living).—Boil the cauliflower as directed. Set it in a round baking dish which can be sent to the table. For a moderate sized cauliflower make one pint of cream sauce (No. 42). Add to the sauce two heaping tablespoons each or grated Parmesian and GruyÈre cheese and a dash of cayenne. Mix the sauce and pour it over the cauliflower, letting it penetrate all the crevices. Cover the top with fine grated bread crumbs, dot with butter, and bake twenty minutes. Serve in the same dish.

19. Au Gratin (Mrs. Marshall).—Trim the cauliflower and blanch it[F]; put it to boil in boiling water till it is tender; then take up and drain. Butter the dish on which it is to be served and put on it about two tablespoonfuls of the sauce as below (No. 39); put the cauliflower on the sauce, then cover it over thickly with sauce, and smooth it all over with a palette knife; sprinkle it with browned bread crumbs; stand the dish in an ordinary baking tin containing about a pint of boiling water; place in the oven for about fifteen or twenty minutes, and when a nice golden color take it from the oven and sprinkle over it a very little grated Parmesian cheese. Stand the dish on another with a napkin, and serve very hot as a second course or luncheon dish.

20. Au Gratin (Mr. S. J. Soyer).—Three cauliflower heads, salt, pepper, grated bread, two eggs, one-quarter pound grated Parmesian cheese, one-quarter pound grated Swiss cheese, one pint white sauce.

The cauliflowers are boiled rare, taken out and drained off. White sauce and spices are boiled thick and the egg dotters and cheese mixed with it. The cauliflowers are cut to pieces and put in layers with sauce between, on a dish or silver saucepan, are sprinkled with grated bread and cheese, put fifteen minutes into a hot oven to be browned with a salamander. Serve as an independent dish.

In place of "white sauce" butter and flour may be baked together and thinned with sweet milk.

21. Cauliflower au Naturel (Mr. J. S. Soyer).—The stem of the white, solid cauliflower heads is cut off an inch from the head, and with a penknife is cleaned of the hard outer membrane, taking care to preserve the head as whole as possible; the head is then well rinsed in cold water, to which is added some vinegar to drive out larvÆ and the like; it is then boiled in salt water until it is tender, when it is taken up to drain off on a sieve or colander. It is to be served high on a napkin, with melted butter, common sauce for vegetables, Dutch sauce, veloutÉ or mÂitre d'hÔtel sauce.

N. B.—For cauliflowers, and vegetables generally, the sauce ought to be rather thick, as it is impossible to have the vegetables run perfectly dry when they are to be served warm.