Cauliflower

If you are looking to save a few bucks and a little time, you can buy 2 pounds of pepper steak strips and cut that into bite-size pieces. The beef won’t be quite as tender but the flavor will be great.

Serve with a green salad.

This delicious cauliflower dish comes from Michelle Cahen Bamberger, whose family had lived in Lorraine since “forever,” as she told me, until World War II brought her to the south of France, where she was forced into hiding. Madame Bamberger says that she feels and cooks French. And she feels French first and Jewish second, despite all that she went through during the war. “One day, I was going home with a bottle of wine under my arm to the place we were hiding in Lyon during the war,” she told me in the parlor of the apartment in Toulon where she and her husband now live. “I saw the Gestapo coming, so, instead of going into the house, I kept walking and saved myself. When we were in hiding, our life wasn’t bad compared with others. Because my parents were in the clothing industry, we traded fabric for butter and rabbits. I remember one day we received a lamb roast. That was really something.” Her cauliflower dish, with its crunchy golden exterior, is similar to ones I have tasted in Israel and elsewhere.

his is a salad from India’s western state of Gujarat. Two tablespoons of crushed roasted peanuts could be added to it just before serving and stirred in. It may be served with most Indian meals and lasts several days in the refrigerator if kept covered.

Fried cauliflower is very popular in the Arab world. There are several ways of doing it.

This pickle turns a deep purple with the juice from the red cabbage. You can also use white cabbage and color the pickle with a few slices of raw or cooked beet.

This is one of the only vegetable dishes from my childhood in which the vegetable in question (in that case cauliflower-broccoflower is a relatively recent innovation) was not completely overcooked, and indeed, still had a nice resistance to the bite. Now, my kids like it, too.

I have long enjoyed combining these two cruciferous vegetables. Broccoli takes slightly more time to cook than cauliflower, so it is given a head start.

Pasta isn’t customarily seasoned with curry, but I’ve long enjoyed this combination.

Cauliflower and broccoli florets turn out crisp around the edges and chewy in the center when dried in the convection oven at a low temperature. Serve them warm from the oven with one or a selection of the suggested dipping sauces. The cauliflower and broccoli are best served freshly roasted, but the dipping sauces can be made several hours ahead and refrigerated.

I love cauliflower, but I know not everyone shares my passion for this nutritious but sometimes bland vegetable. This recipe shows that the right cooking method and complementary ingredients can make a cauliflower dish that can steal the show. As is my way with most vegetables, I skillet-cook the cauliflower—slowly sautéing it with little or no added moisture. That way, more of the essential vegetable flavor is retained and intensified, adding layers of caramelization. Here, too, the companion vegetables enhance the cauliflower, with olives lending earthy complexity, and cherry tomatoes giving acidity and freshness. This can be made in advance and reheated. And if you happen to have some left over, it can be the base for a great risotto, or for dressing a plate of pasta for two.

The second recipe for cavatelli with cauliflower, casareccie vruocchele e vredocchie, has a bit more complexity with toasted almonds and bread crumbs. Typically, this kind of dish is made with fresh home-made pastas like cavatelli—casarecce means “homemade”—but a short dried pasta such as gemelli can be substituted.