We love cauliflower and I was looking for a simple recipe so I could prepare it together with a potato side dish and chicken main dish -- this seemed like the perfect recipe. Essentially it only involves blanching a head of cauliflower and reducing some cream. Easy peasy, right? So the obvious choice was obviously Chou-Fleur a la Sauce Creme (Cauliflower with Fresh Creme Sauce), right? It seemed so at the time but let's start off by saying that it ended up being more of a challenging project than I thought. Hint: There's no use crying over spilled milk.
The preparation started out easy enough as I "dissected" the cauliflower head into individual florets and put a big ol' kettle of water on the stove to get ready for the blanching. I have learned over the past couple of months that a watched pot truly does not boil - especially when I'm watching it with the burner turned off - so now, anytime I'm going to be blanching something, the first thing I do is fill that pot full of water and get it heating up. Incidentally, even though our stove's large burner is marked as "quick boil" there still doesn't seem to be anything quick about it.
To keep things in perspective, I was doing this as part of a well choreographed plan that I'd worked out in my mind so that the cauliflower would be finished at the same time as scalloped potato dish (I'll write about that later) plus chicken breasts with an awesome sauce (also will be written about later). The plan was moving along pretty well until I got a call from my sous chef, Elizabeth, letting me know that she was delayed and would be getting home a bit later. Being in the learning stages of cooking, I'm not very skilled at being flexible. Now in the midst of cooking I was needing to do actual math to figure out new cooking times to try and get everything done at the same time.
I put Plan B into effect and arranged for a phone call when she'd be home in about 20 minutes. I knew I could do this. I had my spices out and measured, my veggies for the other dishes chopped, and the scalloped potatoes were baking in the oven. How hard could this be? Let me tell you a bit about this "Sauce Creme."
Sauce Creme seems pretty simple. You pour two cups into a sauce pan, add some salt and pepper plus a little lemon juice and simmer it until it has reduced to about half the volume. I started the cream simmering and blanched my cauliflower florets. Plan was proceeding right on schedule. I also started my chicken dishes veggies simmering. About then the blanching was done (7 1/2 minutes is the perfect length of time for the doneness we like) and the cauliflower (should I say the boiling cauldron of liquid) was poured into the colander to drain. Nope, I wasn't burned at this point but this was the point where Plan B started to unravel.
My downfall came in the form of my 3-year-old granddaughter, Eloise... After I poured the boiling water into the colander and took a step back I felt my foot bump into something. I turned around and didn't see anything so I started to step back again and, once again, bumped into something. This time I looked down and saw Eloise standing right behind me, looking up and smiling. I didn't realize she'd come in with Elizabeth and Eloise thought she'd sneak up on me. I started visiting with Eloise for a minute, with my back turned to the stove, when all of a sudden I heard a hissing noise.
As soon as I turned around I saw my cream boiling over. Nah, that doesn't really describe it adequately. How about "erupting" out of the pan. I don't think I've ever seen anything, much less a small saucepan, boiling over with the stuff coming over the top by an inch or so. Since we have a glass top electric stove, the boiling cream was happy to start flowing around the stove. Did I mention that two of the other burners were on high. That's where the cream started to flow. I quickly took the creme off of the heat and put it on the remaining small burner to keep it simmering and then proceeded to grab wads of paper towels to try and sop up the spilled cream.
This is where I learned something new -- did you know that cream sitting on a hot electric burner makes a lot of smoke? Not only does it make a lot of smoke but the smoke is a lovely white color and it isn't an eye watering type of smoke like burning meat or other things would make (based, of course, on the cooking experiences of other family members and not my own). As soon as I finished wiping up the spilled cream from the hot burners I opened a door and window so that I could increase visibility beyond 11 inches. That's when Eloise paid me another visit, commented on "Papa's smoke" and asked if she could play with the dollhouse. As I was talking to Eloise, guess what I heard? There was that hissing sound again!
Of course, by now the burner the cream was on had gotten nice and hot and my cream did the same exact thing again! More cream on the burners, lots more smoke, and my new roll of paper towels was quickly becoming an empty tube! Same routine but now I was going to just ignore Eloise!! Not really...she's my buddy. Door was already open so the smoke was already pouring out of the house. I wiped up the mess and finished up my cream sauce.
It thickened a bit and I poured it over the cauliflower. I have to admit, even without the smoke and mess this would not be something I'd probably make again soon. It wasn't bad but I found it to be kind of a blah and boring sauce since it was really just the cream. I was ready to cross it off and just never make it again but then I learned that both Elizabeth and Kathryn really like it. I have to listen to my sous chefs, right? I'll make it again for them, sometime when Eloise isn't around! When I think about it I realize that I'm not a big fan of peaches and cream either so maybe that's why I didn't get too excited about this.
It did end up being a nice light side dish that would go well with other heavier dishes. If you try it, please send me a comment to let me know what you think of it. Also be sure to let me know how thick your smoke was!
Bon Appetit!
Pamombo is truly the best sous chef, always willing to go the extra mile. Literally!
Which by the way, with all these cream and butter recipes he is trying, I try to keep an EXTRA pound of butter and an EXTRA quart of cream on hand at home. I buy more when he says he is using it, not when he says he needs it.
I couldn't believe he burnt the cream requiring even more of the cream he had me stop on the way home to get.