Both cauliflower and sprouts are to be well cleaned, boiled separately in salt water and served on the puré, the cauliflower in the centre and the sprouts around it for garnishing. The sauce, to which is added the egg dotters, butter and cream, is poured hot over the cauliflower and sprouts.
18. Au Gratin (Good Living).—Boil the cauliflower as directed. Set it in a round baking dish which can be sent to the table. For a moderate sized cauliflower make one pint of cream sauce (No. 42). Add to the sauce two heaping tablespoons each or grated Parmesian and Gruyère cheese and a dash of cayenne. Mix the sauce and pour it over the cauliflower, letting it penetrate all the crevices. Cover the top with fine grated bread crumbs, dot with butter, and bake twenty minutes. Serve in the same dish.
19. Au Gratin (Mrs. Marshall).—Trim the cauliflower and blanch it[F]; put it to boil in boiling water till it is tender; then take up and drain. Butter the dish on which it is to be served and put on it about two tablespoonfuls of the sauce as below (No. 39); put the cauliflower on the sauce, then cover it over thickly with sauce, and smooth it all over with a palette knife; sprinkle it with browned bread crumbs; stand the dish in an ordinary baking tin containing about a pint of boiling water; place in the oven for about fifteen or twenty minutes, and when a nice golden color take it from the oven and sprinkle over it a very little grated Parmesian cheese. Stand the dish on another with a napkin, and serve very hot as a second course or luncheon dish.
20. Au Gratin (Mr. S. J. Soyer).—Three cauliflower heads, salt, pepper, grated bread, two eggs, one-quarter pound grated Parmesian cheese, one-quarter pound grated Swiss cheese, one pint white sauce.
The cauliflowers are boiled rare, taken out and drained off. White sauce and spices are boiled thick and the egg dotters and cheese mixed with it. The cauliflowers are cut to pieces and put in layers with sauce between, on a dish or silver saucepan, are sprinkled with grated bread and cheese, put fifteen minutes into a hot oven to be browned with a salamander. Serve as an independent dish.
In place of "white sauce" butter and flour may be baked together and thinned with sweet milk.
21. Cauliflower au Naturel (Mr. J. S. Soyer).—The stem of the white, solid cauliflower heads is cut off an inch from the head, and with a penknife is cleaned of the hard outer membrane, taking care to preserve the head as whole as possible; the head is then well rinsed in cold water, to which is added some vinegar to drive out larvæ and the like; it is then boiled in salt water until it is tender, when it is taken up to drain off on a sieve or colander. It is to be served high on a napkin, with melted butter, common sauce for vegetables, Dutch sauce, velouté or mâitre d'hôtel sauce.
N. B.—For cauliflowers, and vegetables generally, the sauce ought to be rather thick, as it is impossible to have the vegetables run perfectly dry when they are to be served warm.
22. Á la Francaise (Home Cyclopedia).—After trimming properly, cut the cauliflower into quarters, and put into a stewpan and boil until tender; drain and arrange it neatly on a dish. Pour over it melted butter.
23. Á la Louis XIV (Mr. S. J. Soyer).—Cauliflower, new-made butter, grated nutmeg, bouillon.