Cauliflower
November 9, 2017 • Los Angeles
It always struck me as weird that the cruciferous vegetables family (Brassicaceae) includes so many of the vegetables we eat every day: cabbages, radishes, broccoli, kale, turnips, even arugula. The thing we call cauliflower is also a Brassica, and the three varieties it comes in are also very different from one another.
White cauliflower is a great low-calorie rice replacement in dishes like fried rice, and can replace some of the flour in a pizza crust. I haven’t experimented much with the orange and purple varieties, but I’ve come across a delightful way to cook green cauliflower: sliced into steaks and roasted in a hot oven. It comes out delicious and melt-in-your-mouth buttery.
Another weird thing is that the roasting doesn’t work with purple or white cauliflower; they just taste like cooked cauliflower. Something about the green version is different enough that it has a completely unique flavor when roasted.
