Cauliflower and broccoli cheese

I know what you are thinking: what does broccoli got to do with this recipe? Have some faith.
I started making this recipe because I didn't like boiled/steamed cauliflower but I liked cauliflower cheese. I did however found it quite boringly white. White cauliflower. White sauce. I love colour so I decided to add broccoli to it. And it worked! Then I decided to add a lot of orange coloured cheese. That worked too!

 Serves: 6 persons.

Ingredients:
  • 1 cauliflower
  • 1 broccoli
  • 1 bay leave
  • 4 cloves
  • 100g mature Cheddar cheese
  • 200g Red Leicester cheese or Double Gloucester cheese
  • Breadcrumbs
  • For the white sauce
    • 100g unsalted butter
    • 100g plain flour (change to 90g cornflour for gluten-free)
    • 400ml milk
    • 400ml water from the cooking of the vegetables
    • salt, pepper and nutmeg to taste
Method:
  1. Cut the cauliflower and broccoli florets in small pieces of about 4cm. Try to get similar sized cauliflower and broccoli so you get a nice balance of both vegetables. I did not use the broccoli stems nor the cauliflower leaves for this recipe because they cook at different speeds from the florets and you'll end up with soggy leaves and hard stems. I do however use them on the base of my next soup so nothing is wasted.
  2. Boil the cauliflower and the broccoli with the bay leave and the cloves. This needs to be a quick boil to just half cook them. Around 3min will do. You may think 4 cloves is a lot but because it is a quick boil, you will not get the full flavour of the 4 cloves as you would when cooking for longer.
  3. As the vegetables cook, I cut the cheese into small pieces. It's a lot of work but it's worth it as this will help the cheese melt faster.
  4. Drain the vegetables but keep 400ml of the water aside. I put them straight into the oven tray I'm going to use.
  5. I re-use the same pan so I save on washing and make the white sauce in it. Butter, then flour, then milk and water. There are 2 advantages for using the water of the cooking of the vegetables to make white sauce: more flavour and less calories. Mom's trick!
  6. Keep whisking the white sauce until it is quite thick. I don't always get this step right but it is crucial to avoid a very runny end product. As you add the cheese to the white sauce, it will get thinner and then it's hard to reverse it.
  7. Add the cheese slowly so it has time to melt.
  8. Add salt, pepper and nutmeg to taste.
  9. When the white sauce with cheese is ready, pour it over the vegetables and mix it through.
  10. Scatter breadcrumbs on the top and it's ready to go to the oven at 180°C for 30min or until it is golden.
As you can see, I didn't reduce my white sauce enough. It bubbled on the sides and the top coating is shrinking to the middle. Tastes great though. Anyway, perfection is dull!

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