CAULIFLOWER: THE LATEST NEW WONDER VEGETABLE

Of course it’s not new at all. Cauliflowers have been one of the standard boring old vegetables that everyone grows, but suddenly it has become fashionable with professional chefs producing new and exciting recipes. I learned this from an article by Fran Sorin on the Gardening Gone Wild blog in which she gives you the full story including a recipe by Israeli chef, Eyal Shani, who served it in his restaurant.

Kale, the hottest health trend in veggies for some time now, has been usurped by what the media is calling the new ?it? vegetable. And you know what that vegetable is? Cauliflower! Yep, it?s true. What was once a boring, even denigrated vegetable, has become extraordinarily popular within the last year.
If you think cauliflower is limited to the white variety, think again. At supermarkets, like Whole Foods, there are purple, yellow, green and even some wild looking ones like romanesco: professional chefs are having a field day and using them in exciting ways.

Christine Keller, who maps food trends at the CCD Innovation culinary product development agency says: ?Cauliflower can do all sorts of culinary tricks?..unlike kale, which doesn?t taste as great to everyone, but became popular through juicing or chopped in raw salads. Cauliflower is moving to the center of the plate.?
Just a few weeks ago, an article in The Washington Post, titled ?Cauliflower is so hot right now you may not be able to afford it ? or find it? Why? High demand, unseasonably cool temperatures in farming regions and a limited supply are resulting in absurd prices for the latest ?it? veggie.
Believe it or not, cauliflower is fetching $7.99 for an organic head at the Takoma Park Silver Spring Food Co-op and Philadelphia?s Weavers Way Food Co-op actually stopped stocking the vegetable for 3 weeks because they thought the high price would be a turn-off to their buyers.
I found an article and video that recently ran in the New York Times (along with some terrific music) very useful and entertaining. It?s title: How To Roast Cauliflower (The Whole Thing).
It seems that the latest re-incarnation of cauliflower originated with an Israeli chef, Eyal Shani, who served it in his restaurant.
Below is Shani?s thoughts about and recipe for the whole roasted cauliflower:
?The dish appears simple, but the secret to its success is in the precision of technique?, says Shani.
?The recipe is ultimately very simple ? you cook a good small- to medium-sized cauliflower; the smaller they are, the sweeter. Nowadays [at Shani?s restaurants] we work with a special variety of cauliflower that?s grown just for us, over entire hills in the Negev. You cook the cauliflower in salted water and then let it drain like cooked potatoes. You let all the steam dissipate, and then you cover it in olive oil and stick it in the oven,? he said.