Receta Roasted Cauliflower with Whipped Goat Cheese and Roasted Cauliflower Soup
On a recent “Chopped”, the Food
Network TV show that pits four chefs against a basket full of incongruous
ingredients, a very sad fact was served up to the audience. Americans throw away 40 percent of the food
they buy! The dollar amount is
staggering: According to Reuters, $165
billion worth or 90 billion pounds of food goes un-eaten. Apparently in this land of plenty, where millions of people are on government food programs and where a staggering 14 percent of children go to bed hungry, there are equal numbers who throw food away with abandon. And I can’t say that in our house we’re completely guilt-free. A recent refrigerator clean-out included a
few half chopped onions, some very wilted carrots and lots of unidentified
liquids and solids making penicillin in plastic food containers. I am not about to offer excuses. I grew up having “Waste Not, Want Not” etched
into memory. But the plain fact is that
a lot of the recipes I work with are for more than just two people. Andrew will very often ask “So how many
people are coming to dinner?”. Most of
the time I can cut things back to a reasonable portion for two. But there are ingredients that just don’t
divvy up. Take, for example, a head of
Cauliflower. It’s one of the last of
the year’s fresh vegetables. Arrayed at the farm stand with its white center
peeking out from its green housing, I find it irresistible. This year, I was determined to cook one but
not force us into involuntary vegetarianism.
The solution: make two dishes out of one head. It turned out that one night’s meatless meal
was another day’s creamed soup for lunch.
Roasted Cauliflower with Whipped Goat Cheese
and a green salad
I’d
spied a recipe for Roasted Cauliflower with Whipped Goat Cheese in Bon
Appetit. It was from a restaurant called
Domenica in New Orleans. A couple of
days later, my friend Kristi, who lives in Dallas, posted a picture of the
dish, extolling its taste. So I made it
and made it the centerpiece of a meatless Monday supper, serving it with a
simple green salad. I loved the earthiness
the roasting brought out in the cauliflower and the goat cheese was a
revelation. Since Andrew has never been
a fan of the stuff, I’d spied a package labelled Honey Goat Cheese at Trader
Joe’s. The honey seemed to cut the tannic quality of the cheese. And while goat cheese comes to the fore,
there’s feta, cream cheese and cream to smooth the whole thing out.
After dinner, I still had a half a
roasted cauliflower left. And I was
determined not to toss it. Instead, I found a recipe for Roasted Cauliflower
Soup. I had to tinker with it a bit
because it required, of course, a whole cauliflower. It’s a very rich soup. I added far more liquid than the recipe
called for but it remained resolutely thick.
But since Winter decided to pay an early visit to New York, it’s a
welcoming bowl at lunch, especially since I laced it with Garlic-Infused Olive
Oil and that most welcome of all leftovers, crumbled bacon.
Roasted Cauliflower with Whipped Goat Cheese from Domenica in New
Orleans via Bon Appetit Magazine.
For the Roasted Cauliflower:
3 tbsp. fresh lemon juice.
- 1 tbsp. crushed red pepper flakes
- 1 head of cauliflower, leaves removed.
- For the Whipped Goat Cheese
- 4 oz. fresh goat cheese (I used
- Trader Joe’s Honey Goat Cheese)
- 2 tbsp. Garlic-infused Olive Oil
- Coarse Sea Salt (for Serving)
- First, Roast the Cauliflower.
- Bring wine, oil, kosher salt, juice, butter, red pepper
- flakes, sugar, bay leaf, and 8 cups water to a boil in a large pot. Add
- cauliflower, reduce heat, and simmer, turning occasionally, until a knife
- easily inserts into center, 15-20 minutes.
- 3.
- Using 2 slotted spoons or a mesh spider, transfer
- cauliflower to
- a cast iron skillet or sheet pan, draining well. Roast, rotating
- sheet
- halfway through, until brown all over, 30-40 minutes.
- Make the Whipped Goat Cheese
- While cauliflower is roasting, blend goat
- cheese, cream cheese, feta, cream, and 2 tablespoons oil in a food processor
- until smooth; season with sea salt.
- Transfer whipped goat cheese to a serving bowl
- and drizzle with oil.
- Transfer cauliflower to a plate. Drizzle with oil;
- sprinkle with
- sea
- salt. Serve with whipped goat cheese.
- Recipe for Roasted Cauliflower Soup:
- head of Roasted Cauliflower, stemmed and cut into florets (see above for cooking instructions)
- 1
- tablespoon butter
- 1
- onion, finely chopped
- 2
- tablespoons all-purpose flour
- 1 ½
- cups chicken broth*
- 1
- tablespoon dry sherry
- Depending on how thick or thin you want your soup, these
- ingredients
- can vary wildly in amounts but these are the
- Melt the butter in a large saucepan
- over medium heat. Add the chopped onion
and cook and stir until lightly golden brown about 10 minutes.
2.
Sprinkle
the flour over the onions and stir to coat.
Slowly
pour the chicken broth and milk into the pan.
Mix
with a wire whisk until all of the flour is dissolved.
Bring
to a boil while stirring continuously until it thickens,
then
reduce heat to low. Stir in the sherry.
3.
Put
the roasted cauliflower into a
blender, add the liquid from the
skillet. Puree, adding more chicken
stock and
milk per how thick or thin you want your soup.
Reheat
soup in saucepan. Serve with a dash of
Garlic Infused Oil
or
Bacon bits, optional.