Is My Blog Burning? ~ Tartine Edition

Cauliflower Purée with Browned Butter and Hazelnuts

I almost wasn't able to post this at all. We lost our internet connection on Friday for what ended up being more than 24 hours, not a good thing to happen since I needed to write and post my entry Saturday rather than Sunday. I really didn't want to miss this event, I missed the inaugural one and since I spent three days working on this project, it would have been very anticlimactic if I couldn't get my entry posted. So there I was Saturday morning sitting by the computer, typing out my entry and waiting for the little light (or lack of) on the cable box to go back on, waiting...and waiting... and waiting... then FINALLY (!) there was a flutter, then a blink, and then there was a light! I quickly finished writing and working on the entry, then FTP'ed everything to my server just in case we lost our connection again.

All's well that ends well as my friend Bill always says, so without further delay, I present you with my entry for the Is My Blog Burning? ~Tartine Edition.

Since a tartine is basically an open-faced sandwich, I decided to consult the one cookbook I have devoted solely to sandwiches, Nancy Silverton's Sandwich Book by Nancy Silverton with Teri Gelber. There’s a chapter in the book devoted to open-faced sandwiches and after browsing through it I decided the Cauliflower Purée with Browned Butter and Hazelnuts recipe was the one for me. It looked easy enough, didn't require me to go out of my way to get fancy, or hard to find ingredients and the idea of creamed cauliflower sounded good to me (Mmmm, cream). I modified the recipe slightly to better fit in with my tastes but basically it went as follows:

1. I toasted 1/2 cup of hazelnuts in a 325 degree oven until lightly browned, then placed them in a kitchen towel and rubbed them together to remove most of the skins (some didn't want to co-operate), then coarsely chopped them and put them aside.

2. I removed and discarded the green stem and leaves from a medium sized cauliflower then sliced the stalk away from the head, setting it aside, then broke the large head into florets. I separated out 4 or 5 of the larger florets and sliced them into small pieces then set those aside. in the book it’s actually written as "32 1/4-inch-thick slices" but I wasn't about to start getting that precise I then sliced the stalk into 1/4-inch slices and set that aside again.

3. I placed the cauliflower florets and the sliced stem into a small saucepan with 4 cloves of peeled garlic (the recipe uses 2), 1/2 onion that had been thinly sliced, 1 teaspoon of salt, a dash of fresh ground nutmeg ( my idea) and a pinch of grated lemon zest (my idea) then added heavy cream until everything was covered. I brought this to a boil then lowered the heat and simmered for 30 minutes, stirring constantly. After 30 minutes I strained the mixture setting the cream aside, I transferred 3/4 the cauliflower into a blender and puréed the mixture adding the cream slowly and sparingly so that I ended up with something that was consistency of smooth mashed potatoes. There was a lot of cream left over, and Silverton suggests reserving it for another use. I can see using it as a base for a soup, it was fragrant and quite tasty but I ended up discarding it because it amounted to about a quart of cream that I wouldn't be able to use before it went bad...damn, it just occurred to me that I could have frozen it...oh well I smashed the remaining cauliflower with a fork and added that to the purée mixing it just enough so that everything was coarse and chunky. I salted and peppered to taste.

4. I brought 6 cups of water and 2 tablespoons of salt to a boil then added the sliced cauliflower that I had earlier set aside. I let it boil for a few minutes until they were just tender then drained, plunged them into cold water, and set aside to drain a little more. I then sautéed the cauliflower in 2 tablespoons of browned butter until it was browned and slightly crispy, then removed it with a slotted spoon and set aside. The actual recipe uses 1 stick of butter by the time all is said and done but I didn't use nearly that much.

5.I didn't follow Silverton's instructions for making the breadcrumbs for two reasons, a) I thought croutons would look nicer instead, and I thought they might help me gain height when it came to stacking the ingredients for the final assembly and b) Honestly, I was getting tired of all the steps that the meticulous Silverton was making me take to make what, if you really think about it, was going to be a sandwich. So, I sliced 2 pieces of bread into small cubes and tossed them in a skillet with some butter until they were just browned and crunchy, then removed them from the heat and set aside. To Silverton's credit, breadcrumbs do work better as I later found out, so in the middle of stacking the sandwich I tossed the croutons into the blender and grated them to a fine powder then used them.

6. For the sandwich, I took 2 slices of the Country White Loaf that I had baked the day before using a recipe from Silverton's book Breads from the La Brea Bakery, rubbed the slices with garlic, then brushed them with a little olive oil, gave a sprinkle of kosher salt then toasted them lightly in my toaster. (The recipe uses grilled bread but I didn't have access to a grill.) I wanted the sandwich to look as nice as it was tasty so I really took my time putting it together.

I started with a layer of romaine lettuce

added the lightly toasted bread

then the creamed cauliflower

and the sautéed cauliflower

It was at this point that I decided I wanted to make the presentation a little nicer, so I removed the bread and added more romaine to the dish, placing it on the other side of the plate

then added some chives in a nice pattern (the chives were supposed to be chervil, something I had on my list to pick up at the farmers market earlier in the week but then forgot once I was there)

I placed the bread back onto the bed of lettuce, added the bread crumbs, the chopped hazelnuts, a squeeze of lemon and whew! I was finally done.

The sandwich was tasty, but not a practical sandwich to make in my opinion. Oh, who knows, to be fair, maybe it's because I don’t have the free time that I used to, to spend just making a fancy sandwich, but then again I think the recipes in this book are meant to be meals and not really light quick lunches, so I'll shut-up now. I had a blast doing this for the Is My Blog Burning event and want to give a shout out to Alberto for coming up with the terrific idea and a warm thank you to Clotilde for hosting it this time around. Tom, myself and the Wee Bairn are going out of town for a few days so until next time, be well everyone.

Written by Deb on March 7, 2004 12:01 AM