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A love song to the cauliflower

Simon Balissat
28.5.2019
Translation: machine translated

Swiss cauliflower is in season. Spurned by me in my youth, the white flower has become my favourite vegetable. So I'm giving the cauliflower a few lines of love and a few recipe ideas for you.

Doesn't it look great, the cauliflower? Virgin white, like a bride with a veil in her wedding dress. Now it's finally growing again in Switzerland. What's the asparagus season? I don't need a wild garlic craze either. I want cauliflower. Why didn't I like it as a child? The cabbage is so versatile. Whether steamed, baked in the oven, raw or even as rice. Some people may think it is tasteless. But that's exactly what makes cauliflower the ideal accompaniment. Cauliflower is not the dolled-up lady from the escort service. It is the Cinderella of vegetables, the wallflower that shines even more beautifully in the right dress.

Fractal vegetables

Nature has already given cabbage a beautiful dress. Its shape repeats itself again and again. The large cabbage consists of many small heads. And these in turn are made up of even smaller cabbages. Fractal structures, like a mass of almond bread. This is by no means a loaf of bread made from almonds, but a set of complex numbers named after the mathematician Benoît Mandelbrot. This thing here, which you've probably seen before:

"Almond" is still a good keyword. More precisely: toasted almond slivers over steamed cauliflower. A classic side dish in country restaurants that is often unjustly disdained. It is cauliflower in its basic form. The possibilities are endless.

Roasted cauliflower

Roasted flavours. A term used inflationarily by TV chefs. They are simply "super tasty" (Ralf Zacherl). Preheat the oven to 220 degrees, divide the cauliflower into florets, mix with olive oil, salt, pepper and other spices and spread on the baking tray. Turn after 15 minutes and remove from the oven after 30 minutes. How wonderfully the roasted flavours meld with the spices! There is hardly a better side dish.

Image: Flickr, Gloria Cabada-Leman
Image: Flickr, Gloria Cabada-Leman

Cauliflower patties

A popular way of hiding vegetables for children is these patties. Mixed with egg, flour and cheese, formed into a hamburger shape and fried, the cauliflower is no longer recognisable in its fractal-filigree form. Beauty is in the eye of the beholder and a crispy patty like this is something to behold.

Cauliflower rice

I hate "low carb" substitute foods. Except cauliflower rice. This is shredded cauliflower, baked just enough so that it still has a certain bite. It doesn't really replace rice, but you can eat it by the kilo without hesitation. Grate the cauliflower on a rösti grater, mix with salt, pepper and a little olive oil in an oven dish and bake in a preheated oven at 200 degrees for 20 minutes. Turn the "rice" once during this time.

Image: Flickr, Larry Hoffman
Image: Flickr, Larry Hoffman

Coal vapour

Now I've included three cauliflower recipes and the mathematician Benoît Mandelbrot in one article. I can also quote an ode to cauliflower by Samuel Herzog from the NZZ. Incidentally, cauliflower is the Austrian word for cauliflower in the following paragraph.

And then the naturalness with which it can be grasped by our fingers, as if it had grown out of our hand. You could dance, with a rosette in each hand, a solemn cauliflower waltz - if we did that with two cucumbers, it would look like an absurd performance, but with cauliflower it would have a beauty of its own.

Amen. Here's to you, dear cauliflower. The best of all vegetables.

Cabbage

Which is your favorite cabbage?

  • cauliflower
    54%
  • White cabbage
    2%
  • Kale
    2%
  • Brussels Sprouts
    16%
  • Helmut Kohl
    18%
  • No cabbage at all
    8%

The competition has ended.

Do you have a favourite recipe with cauliflower? Or is your favourite vegetable something else entirely? Maybe you also have a favourite mathematician? I look forward to your comment!

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Simon Balissat
Teamleader Editorial
Simon.Balissat@digitecgalaxus.ch

When I flew the family nest over 15 years ago, I suddenly had to cook for myself. But it wasn’t long until this necessity became a virtue. Today, rattling those pots and pans is a fundamental part of my life. I’m a true foodie and devour everything from junk food to star-awarded cuisine. Literally. I eat way too fast. 

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