From Salades, Damien Pignolet, Lantern, 2010.
Raw
cauliflower is not exactly a favourite of mine. I do enjoy it cooked but I find
that raw it is a bland, rather tedious vegetable to eat. Nevertheless, I
thought I’d give it another try in this salad.
The
cauliflower, sufficient for the two of us, was broken into florets and soaked
for about 10 minutes in cold water. After this they went into a pot of boiling
salted water. The recipe says for 30 seconds; I left it there for a minute to
make sure and because of my edginess about it raw. It then went into cold water again to halt the cooking.
An apple
was peeled, cored, thinly sliced and mixed with the juice of a half a lemon.
Two stalks
of celery from the centre of the bunch were sliced. Two spring onions were sliced
thinly. Two eggs were boiled until hard.
The
cauliflower, apple, celery and spring onions were placed in a bowl with some
chopped parsley.
A dressing
was made with a teaspoon Dijon mustard, salt and pepper, cider vinegar, extra
virgin olive oil and a little walnut oil. This was not the dressing from the
recipe, which had a coddled egg beaten into it; I decided against the egg.
The
dressing was poured over the vegetables that were then gently tossed. When
served, watercress leaves and rocket leaves were added. The boiled eggs were shelled, quartered and
added on top. A little smoked paprika was sprinkled over.
The crunch
in this salad was really evident—it was all crunch that had to be chewed and
chewed. The flavours were there, though
somewhat delicate. I am still not totally convinced about cauliflower eaten raw.
Taste: ✔✔
Ease of
cooking: ✔✔✔
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