Cauliflower Cheese
The florets boiled briefly and drained hard, under a mustard-sharp sauce built on a properly cooked roux.
- Prep
- 15m
- Cook
- 35m
- Waiting
- 5m
- Total
- 55m
- Serves
- 6
- Effort
- Moderate
Method
No roux and no boiling — raw florets baked under cream and cheese. Richer, and one pan short.
Tap a step number to mark it done. Tap an ingredient once for got it, twice for need it.
| 50 g | Cook the roux until it smells of biscuits 3m Raw flour tastes of raw flour. Three minutes fixes it. | Make a mustard cheese sauce 12m Take the pan off the heat before the cheese goes in. | Pour the sauce over the drained florets in a shallow dish 3m Shallow, so more of the surface can brown. | Bake at 200°C / 400°F until blistered and browned in patches 25m | |
| 50 g | |||||
| 600 ml | |||||
| 1 | |||||
| 2 tsp | |||||
| 175 g | |||||
| a scrape | |||||
| 1 tsp | |||||
| 1 large head | Boil the florets for 4 minutes, then drain and steam dry 8m Wet cauliflower waters down the sauce in the dish. | ||||
| 1 tbsp | |||||
| 30 g | |||||
| 30 g | |||||
-
Cook the roux until it smells of biscuits
3m- butter 50 g
- plain flour 50 g
Raw flour tastes of raw flour. Three minutes fixes it.
-
Make a mustard cheese sauce
12m- from 1 Cook the roux until it smells of biscuits
- whole milk 600 ml
- bay leaf 1
- English mustard 2 tsp
- mature cheddar 175 g
- nutmeg a scrape
- salt 1 tsp
Take the pan off the heat before the cheese goes in.
-
Boil the florets for 4 minutes, then drain and steam dry
8m- cauliflower 1 large head
- salt 1 tbsp
Wet cauliflower waters down the sauce in the dish.
-
Pour the sauce over the drained florets in a shallow dish
3m- from 2 Make a mustard cheese sauce
- from 3 Boil the florets for 4 minutes, then drain and steam dry
Shallow, so more of the surface can brown.
-
Bake at 200°C / 400°F until blistered and browned in patches
25m- from 4 Pour the sauce over the drained florets in a shallow dish
- hard cheese 30 g
- coarse breadcrumbs (optional) 30 g
| 1 large head | Toss the florets with the cream and cheese in a baking dish 10m | Bake covered at 190°C / 375°F for 30 minutes, then uncovered for 15 45m The foil steams the cauliflower through before the top is allowed to colour. | |
| 300 ml | |||
| 100 ml | |||
| 175 g | |||
| 2 tsp | |||
| 1 1/2 tsp | |||
| a scrape |
-
Toss the florets with the cream and cheese in a baking dish
10m- cauliflower 1 large head
- double cream 300 ml
- whole milk 100 ml
- mature cheddar 175 g
- English mustard 2 tsp
- salt 1 1/2 tsp
- nutmeg a scrape
-
Bake covered at 190°C / 375°F for 30 minutes, then uncovered for 15
45m- from 1 Toss the florets with the cream and cheese in a baking dish
The foil steams the cauliflower through before the top is allowed to colour.
Why the roux is cooked first
Flour thickens because its starch granules absorb water and swell, but raw flour also carries a chalky taste. Cooking it in butter for a few minutes drives that off and coats each granule in fat, which keeps them separate so they hydrate evenly instead of clumping. Add the cheese off the heat: above roughly 80°C its proteins tighten and squeeze out fat, and the sauce turns grainy and oily.
Notes
- Include the stalk. Sliced thin it cooks at the same rate and tastes sweeter than the florets.
- Undersalt the sauce and the whole dish reads as bland dairy. It should taste slightly too sharp before it goes in the oven.
- Mustard and nutmeg are not flavourings you should be able to identify. They make the cheese taste more like cheese.