Cauliflower Lorraine
My mother-in-law, Lorraine Miller, placed third in an Easter Sunday recipe contest years ago with her unique cauliflower recipe. This family recipe, passed down from her grandmother, features a creamy sauce with egg yolks, vinegar, and green onions. After her recent passing, family members requested the recipe, prompting me to share this treasured dish.
My mother-in-law, Lorraine Miller, placed third in an Easter Sunday recipe contest years ago with her unique cauliflower recipe. This family recipe, passed down from her grandmother, features a creamy sauce with egg yolks, vinegar, and green onions. After her recent passing, family members requested the recipe, prompting me to share this treasured dish.
- Carbohydrate 20.2658601729444 g
- Cholesterol 165.6275 mg
- Fat 25.5366833484767 g
- Fiber 4.45698624339365 g
- Protein 6.51849912273488 g
- Saturated Fat 15.3757770449169 g
- Serving Size 1 1 Serving (343g)
- Sodium 257.339323171182 mg
- Sugar 15.8088739295507 g
- Trans Fat 1.83377301351829 g
- Calories 325 calories
Step-by-step
- Melt butter or margarine, add green onions, garlic and birdseye pepper and saute until tender.
- Add flour, stir and cook for 2 minutes until flour is blended; do not brown.
- Add water slowly, stirring all the while.
- Continue stirring and cooking until mixture comes to a boil.
- Add salt, pepper and parsley and cook 15 minutes or longer over low fire, stirring occasionally.
- Add more water if necessary to keep mixture the consistency of medium cream sauce.
- While mixture is cooking, boil cauliflower in salted water until tender but firm.
- Drain.
- Beat egg yolks and add vinegar.
- Stir into sauce; turn off fire immediately.
- Put cauliflower in bowl, pour sauce over it and serve immediately.
Emulsifying egg yolks directly into a hot flour and water base requires precise temperature control to prevent scrambling the proteins. Whisking the vinegar into the yolks before incorporation lowers the pH slightly, which raises the coagulation temperature of the egg proteins and provides a safety margin against curdling. Cooking the flour and butter roux for exactly two minutes eliminates raw starch flavors without allowing the mixture to take on any color, ensuring a clean, neutral canvas for the aromatics. When simmering the sauce over low heat for the required fifteen minutes, maintain a gentle bubble rather than a rolling boil to prevent the dairy fats from separating.
Preparing this dish in advance demands careful attention to the structural integrity of the brassica. Boil the cauliflower florets until they reach a fork-tender yet resistant stage, stopping just before they soften completely, so they retain their shape through subsequent heating cycles. Submerge the drained vegetable immediately in an ice bath if holding it longer than ten minutes, arresting residual thermal carryover that leads to mushy textures. Store the cooked cauliflower and the cream sauce in separate airtight containers in the refrigerator for up to three days.
Freezing the finished dish changes the cellular structure of the sauce significantly due to the high water content in the water and butter base. Thaw frozen components overnight in the refrigerator rather than using a microwave, which heats unevenly and causes the emulsion to break. Reheat the sauce gently in a heavy-bottomed saucepan over medium-low heat, whisking constantly to restore homogeneity before combining it with the warmed vegetable. Avoid high heat during the reheating phase to protect the delicate balance of the egg and vinegar reduction.
Fresh alliums and bird's eye peppers deliver sharper, volatile aromatics compared to dried or preserved alternatives, which rely on concentrated oils that alter the final flavor profile. Mincing the garlic and green onions uniformly ensures they distribute evenly through the roux during the initial sauté phase, releasing their essential compounds into the butter. Substituting salted butter for margarine alters the sodium balance of the sauce, so adjust the added salt accordingly after the fifteen-minute simmer has concentrated the liquids.
