Cauliflower Cheese

Cauliflower Cheese

Cauliflower Cheese is one of Helena’s favourite vegetable side dishes.  Historically, we always par boiled the cauliflower before smothering in cheese sauce.  Now we’ve discovered the joy of roasting cauliflower, we prefer to roast the cauliflower.  There are a number of ways to do this.

• You can tumble the cauliflower in the rotisserie basket,
• roast on the back of the convEGGtor or
• roast in a tin with the convEGGtor and stainless steel grid

If you look closely at the photo, you might notice that we added a bed of leeks to this dish.  Nic’s not a fan of cauliflower but loves leeks so this combination of two vegetables was a win win.  We didn’t pre-cook the leeks, just sliced them a bit finer than we normally would.  You can adapt the recipe too; a combination of roasted cauliflower and broccoli florets is a cracking mix of vegetables. You could always add a breadcrumb topping to transform it into a gratin to be the star of the show, although it’s equally as good without the crunchy topping.

We also tried adding a dash of white wine to the cheese sauce.  This intensified the cheese flavour but this is optional, the cheese sauce with strong cheddar and mustard works perfectly.

This is a great side for a roast or dinner, our particular favourite is with a rotisserie gammon, which can be cooked alongside your main course on the Big Green Egg.

Method

Preparing the Cauliflower

1. Remove the outer leaves from the cauliflower and break or cut the cauliflower into florets.  Discard any of the unwanted core.
2. To par boil the cauliflower, bring a pan of water to the boil and cook the cauliflower for about 5 mins.  It still needs some bite as it will be roasted.
3. Alternatively set up your Big Green Egg for a direct cook at 200°C with the rotisserie and tumbling basket.  Follow step 1, place the florets in a bowl and drizzle with a bit of olive oil.
4. Place the cauliflower in the tumbling basket and cook on the rotisserie in the Egg until the cauliflower starts to brown. This takes about 20 minutes.  Once cooked, remove from the heat.

Making and Cooking the Cauliflower Cheese

1. Setup your Big Green Egg for an indirect cook with the stainless steel grid on top of your ConvEGGtor.  Set your Egg to 200°C.
2. Cut your leeks into 1cm rounds and pop into the bottom of an ovenproof baking dish, if using.  Add the par-boiled or roasted cauliflower to the dish.
3. To make the sauce, you start with a classic roux, so melt the butter in a pan and then stir in the flour.  Keep stirring, you’re looking to make a thick paste.  Once you’ve got a paste, give it a couple of minutes to cook the flour; you’ll start to see bubbles forming in the paste.
4. Add the milk gradually, a bit at a time, stirring continously, until all the milk has been added.  As the milk heats up, it will start to thicken, so keep stirring to avoid any lumps forming.
5. You’re looking for the sauce to coat the back of a spoon, at this point you can stir in the dijon mustard and white wine, if using.
6. Remove from the heat and add the cheese.  The cheese will melt in the residual heat of the sauce.
7. Taste the sauce; we season with a little salt and lots of ground black pepper.  We might even add a bit more mustard and or cheese depending how the sauce tastes.
8. Now you can pour the cheese sauce into the dish to cover the cauliflower.  If you want to top with breadcrumbs, sprinkle over the top.
9. Place the dish on the grid and cook for about 40 minutes until the top is crisp and bubbling and the cauliflower has softened.
10. Once cooked, remove from the heat and serve with your favourite roast or preferred dinner.