Rosemary tries to make Thermomix magic as she has a crack at Heston's cauliflower cheese
I have never attempted a Heston recipe before, but being a cheese lover I decided to have a go at his cauliflower cheese recipe and also to partially make it in my Thermomix (which, from here on, will be referred to as TM).
Having been a proud owner of this super-duper cooking machine since October, I am always on the lookout for recipes that I can convert for making in it and this one seemed ideal.
Firstly, I made the sugar and wine vinegar marinade and left the cauliflower in it overnight - this was the only time I used the hob. I used two small cauliflowers instead of one large one.
The following morning I grated the cheese for cooking and topping separately in the TM and coated the cooking cheese in the cornflour. I used Gruyere for cooking and a mixture of that and mature Cheddar for the topping. This was then put aside.
The next step was to do the other two batches of cauliflower. I started with the boiled cauliflower which I did, in fact, steam. This took 16 minutes in the basket that sits on the TM bowl. For steaming liquid, I used 500ml of home-made vegetable stock, which had been frozen then de-frosted through butter muslin to give a nice clear stock. I added 300ml water to the stock.
Frying time
In the meantime I heated my electric deep-fat fryer which contained groundnut oil (much as I would like to use olive oil, it does not have such a high smoke point) to the recommended 180 degrees and deep fried the cauliflower, which took little more than a minute to turn golden brown. I then deep fried a whole bulb of peeled garlic, cutting in half the larger cloves.
Returning to the TM, I removed the steamed cauliflower and mixed it with the others. At the same time, I reduced the stock/water in the TM to 200ml, which took 18 minutes. I then reduced the wine in the TM to 30ml, which took 15 minutes. If I had thought, I could have done that in advance as well, but you live and learn.
With the cauliflower in a soufflé dish (I don’t have any ramekins large enough) I started the sauce by adding the cornfloured cheese and the fried garlic to the TM bowl and processed at top speed for a few seconds, so that the garlic was well pulverised. I added the remaining ingredients using 20g butter, except for the cream cheese as I was not sure how much cooking it would take. I cooked the sauce at 90 degrees for five minutes, added the cream cheese, of which I used 30g, and cooked for a further one minute.
Finally, I poured the sauce over the cauliflower, mixed it in, sprinkled over the grated chase and grilled for several minutes.
The verdict
Don’t be put off by the garlic quantity because it doesn’t taste garlicky at all. The deep frying gives it a nice caramelised flavour and is quite sweet. I was surprised at how well the three types of cauliflower worked together and was particularly impressed by the fried version. The sauce was out of this world and will be made time and time again, experimenting with different cheeses, other vegetables and ingredients.
Want to join in?
Thank you Rosemary. If you want to join in and potentially win a tour of Heston's lab!, just register with lovefood, pick a recipe from the show, attempt it properly, and let us know how you got on by sending some pics and a few hundred words by email to contactus@lovefood.com
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