By request of doseybat, I give you...

[compilerbitch]

Cauliflower cheese.

Ingredients:
Milk. Plenty of (like get a proper sized bottle, not those microscopic things your mum buys). Any kind will do, but whole tastes best.
Mature cheddar, cut into small cubes or sticks. At least twice as much as you'd probably think would make sense. Like an entire smallish block from the supermarket, or half a big one.
Cornflower. 2 heaped tablespoons thereof.
Onion (finely chopped, optional, but I like it)
Pinch of chilli powder (optional, but again, I like it)

Method:
Cauliflower
Boil the cauliflower until you can push a fork through the thicker parts of the stalks without it feeling rubbery, then drain it straight away. DON'T leave it in the water, or it will keep on cooking and end up mush.

Cheese sauce
Put about a mug's worth of COLD milk in a saucepan (my old nice stainless steel one is perfect).
Put a couple of heaped tablespoons of cornflower into the milk.
Stir very thoroughly, ideally with a balloon whisk (you can use a spoon or fork, but it's much easier with a whisk)
Optionally, add the onion at this point.
Only put the pan on the gas once the cornflour is in suspension. You want a highish heat until the milk starts to steam, then turn it down to a low to medium flame.
Keep whisking continuously. The idea is to keep the cornflour in suspension. Eventually, it will hit a magic temperature, and all of the starch grains explode more or less at the same time, so the liquid goes from runny like milk to very thick like custard. You'll probably need to add a bit more milk at this point and keep stirring. Once you have a sauce (which will still be white at this point) with roughly cheese sauce consistency, dump all of the cheese into it and keep stirring until it is all dissolved. The cheese may make the sauce a bit too thick, in which case adding a tiny bit more milk will loosen it up again. Once you have cheese sauce (which should be fairly obvious!), turn off the gas. You can add a pinch of chilli powder at this point if you like, but stir it in well.

First tip: Make sure you have everything prepared BEFORE you start making the sauce, or it will inevitably go wrong.
Second tip: Don't stop stirring. Ever.
Third tip: As soon as you've poured the cheese sauce over the cauliflower, put hot water and a bit of washing up liquid in the pan or you'll be sorry later. :-)

Finishing touches
Put the cauliflower into an oven dish, then pour the cheese sauce over the top of it. Then put the whole thing under the grill with the grill on maximum. Keep watching -- when you have small bits going brown (about the size of £1 coins), you're done.

Notes:
For the purists out there, yes, I'm perfectly aware that this is actually a cheese blancmange, not a 'real' Roux-method cheese sauce, but it's way easier to get right and actually tastes pretty much as good. Yes, I put more cheese in the sauce than most people, but it Tastes Really Good so I Don't Care.

Comments

[hmw26.livejournal.com]

Mmm! Sounds very similar to my receipe for cauliflower cheese, except I usually put a small amount of Colman's mustard powder and a small dash of Worcestershire sauce into the cheese sauce.

[compilerbitch.livejournal.com]

Mmm, yes, I can see that working too. It's the same basic idea as the chilli, just adding something to give a bit more zing to the flavour.

Good word, zing. I like it.

[darcydodo]

We used to have cauliflower-cheese all the time at college, but I haven't had it since, and I'm not sure I'd had it before. So perhaps it's a British thing. :)

[compilerbitch.livejournal.com]

Come for a visit, and I'll be happy to feed it to you! :-)

[darcydodo]

Yum. I really should try and make it down south at some point, though I don't know when that'll happen next.

[aiwendel.livejournal.com]

ooo good one :)
I found a good Roux method for this the other day, but without the onions and chilli. It did have a teaspoon of mustard as it's secret ingredient though which made the difference. oh and it wanted the lot to be baked for 20 mins at the end, whereas grilling is probably a better idea!

I tried cheating and microwaving a cornflour one, but discovered that the cooking the cauliflower separately really is a necessary part of the thing! Still cauliflower is edible raw so it didn't really matter...

[compilerbitch.livejournal.com]

You can make cornflour-based cheese sauce in the microwave pretty well, actually -- you just put milk and cornflour in a glass bowl, whisk it well, microwave for 1 minute, whisk again, microwave for another minute, then basically just repeat until it's done, adding more milk as necessary.

I did the same thing as you and tried to put the cauli in at the same time. Exactly once. :-)

[simont]

but it's way easier to get right and actually tastes pretty much as good

... and is gluten-free. Mmm, cheese sauce.

[compilerbitch.livejournal.com]

It is indeed. This variation on cauliflower cheese is actually my most favourite food of all. Mmmm.

[azir-aphale.livejournal.com]

Right, its all your fault. My work day has only just begun and now I want cauliflower cheese. Its all cold and wintry and frosty out there (which I love) and cauliflower cheese is one of the best winter warming comforty things in the world. Its tasty too.

mmmm cheese......

[compilerbitch.livejournal.com]

You should have some tonight. :-)

[the-maenad.livejournal.com]

Nom, nom. Collie cheese is a wonderful thing. Personally I like to melt yet more cheese on top of the whole thing and grill that till it browns, but I like cheese.

My other half puts mushrooms in it, which works a lot better than you'd think, though it makes the sauce go a funny colour. He had some that needed using up one time and threw them in to see how they worked...

[compilerbitch.livejournal.com]

I think I put mushrooms in once, as you mention it, due to being short of cheese (or something). It worked pretty well, as I remember...

[simont]

Hang on a minute. I've just spotted the deliberate mistake. The list of ingredients doesn't include cauliflower! :-)

(This is more than a minor pedantic point, too: if you don't mention a quantity of cauliflower, we don't know how much cauliflower is right for that quantity of everything else. So it's a major pedantic point.)