Cauliflower wears the crown

Low in carbs, the pureed vegetable has become a star

By Alison Arnett, Globe Staff | May 19, 2004

http://www.boston.com/ae/food/artic...ears_the_crown/

"Training is everything," wrote Mark Twain. "Cauliflower is nothing but cabbage with a college education." Twain's throwaway line mocks a vegetable often scorned, but it may also have been prescient.

Partly spurred by low carb diets that equate potatoes with lethal weapons, cauliflower steps into a starring role these days. Steamed and then pureed with a little no-fat half-and-half, the vegetable suddenly becomes South Beach's faux mashed potatoes. The cauliflower puree maintains that creamy texture that is one of the comforting aspects of mashed potatoes, and the flavor, while not potatoes, does have an elusive sweetness. Of course, the French knew this long before the South Beach diet. The late 19th century food authority Georges Auguste Escoffier describes it as puree a la du Barry, named for Louis XV's mistress Comtesse du Barry.

Whether served as a side dish, as a base for a soup, or under a thick pork chop -- as it is at the restaurant Spire -- cauliflower, once a bit player, has suddenly become a sought-after marquee idol.

Paul Booras, chef and owner of the Salt Box in Ipswich, says he's glad to substitute cauliflower for Atkins or South Beach dieters. Requests for Atkins-style main courses have been going up, and he estimates that 25 percent of meals going out of his kitchen are low-carb. Diners specifically ask "for that stuff that is kind of like mashed potatoes," he says.

Cauliflower, a cruciferous vegetable, is high in vitamin C and other antioxidants, is a source of iron, and is much lower in carbohydrates and calories than potatoes. But that's not really the reason Gabriel Frasca, chef of Spire, stacks a maple-brined pork chop on top of snowy white pureed cauliflower touched with curry. He just loves the vegetable.

And since he was cooking cauliflower four times a week anyway, the chef decided to be resourceful and find another outlet for the vegetable, so now there's a cauliflower soup on the lunch menu. It's as simple as can be, Frasca says. He covers cauliflower florets with whole milk and simmers them with bay leaf, parsley, onion, and a little curry powder. When the cauliflower is tender, he purees the vegetables with as little milk as possible to make a creamy soup.

"The South Beach Diet Cookbook" gives a simple recipe that calls for steaming 4 cups of cauliflower florets until crisp-tender, then pureeing them with 2 tablespoons of butter spray and 1 ounce of fat-free half and half in a blender. Booras's treatment is similar. He cooks the cauliflower until it's very tender, then purees it with olive oil and a little butter, adding salt and pepper at the end.

Cauliflower might seem to be a cold-weather vegetable; Sage chef and owner Anthony Susi adds pureed cauliflower to an autumn fish dish. But others don't peg it to a certain season. Michael Leviton, chef and co-owner of Lumiere in West Newton, thinks of cauliflower for summer when he puts a vichyssoise on his menu. "It's incredibly simple," he says, involving only leeks and cauliflower cooked until tender and then pureed with a little creme fraiche.

"We tried chicken or vegetable broth" in making the soup, Leviton says, "but they interfered with the flavor of the cauliflower." In the end, water was used to simmer the vegetables. The result, he says, is a "silky" vichyssoise, with the characteristic sweetness that cauliflower imparts when cooked. "The response is phenomenal."

Both Leviton and Frasca say some diners dislike cauliflower because they can't think of it without recalling childhood memories of the vegetable desperately overcooked. To tempt some customers, says Frasca, he often sends out a little side dish of pureed cauliflower to those who ask for substitutions in the entree. "It's one of the most underappreciated and underused vegetables," he says.

"It's such a happy coincidence that these vegetables are so good for us."