Shop Once, Eat for Three Days (Pt 1 Cauliflower Edition)- Bee Wilson 🌞 [View all]

‘Eternity is a ham and two people.’
A quotation attributed to Dorothy Parker






Shop Once, Eat for Three Days

Cook once, eat twice is a great motto to live by. Cook once, eat four times is
not quite so great, as any single person cooking from recipes for four soon
discovers. The first night, it is cheering to ladle out a bowlful of chilli from
a giant pan. The second night, it is a pleasant surprise to realise that there is
a generous batch of chilli in the fridge and you don’t have to cook again.
The third night, your stomach starts to turn at the very sight of it. The fourth
night, having lost all appetite for the chilli, you stash the dregs of it in the
freezer where it is never seen again until you defrost the freezer and chuck
it out six months later.

Yes, I know it doesn’t have to be like this. Batch cooking can be a
brilliant way to live for the single cook: thrifty both on time and money.
The key, I feel, is deciding what you are going to do with all this food from
the offset. On the first night, decant the chilli (or soup or stew or ragù, as
the case may be) into a few neatly labelled boxes with portion size, date you
made it and any other notes (i.e. Chilli for one, April 10th – spicy and
delicious!). It then seems a much more appetising prospect in the freezer.

Also consider ways to ring the changes. To stick with the chilli example, a
bowl of chilli could be eaten with a baked potato and soured cream one
night, with rice, lime juice and coriander another night and stuffed into
tortillas and baked as enchiladas on a third night.

But batch cooking is not the only way. Another approach to shopping
and cooking for one is to find alternative ways to cook the same thing to
give it completely different flavours and textures on two or three successive
nights. This approach suits those like me who actively relish a bit of
cooking therapy at the end of a long day and who get bored easily (though it
may seem less appealing if you are someone who enjoys cooking more
when it’s a once-in-a-while deal).If this style of solo cooking appeals to you,
I highly recommend a book called The Pleasures of Cooking for One by
Judith Jones, written after the author was widowed and wasn’t sure if she
would ever enjoy cooking again. Jones suggests that the secret of making
cooking for one more fun is to see the ways that one meal can connect with
another through the same ingredient. The example she gives is a whole fillet
of pork, which could be used in at least three different ways on three nights:
‘one night, a few slices sautéd in a lemony pan sauce; another, a quick roast
macerated first in garlic and ginger (any leftovers from that might go into a
hash or rice dish); finally, the thinner end piece cut up for an Asian-type stir-
fry with lots of vegetables’.

Instead of cook once, eat twice, how about shop once and eat three
times? To me, this keeps life more interesting, which is half the point of
cooking. Here are two mini meal plans for getting three meals from one
ingredient: the first for a whole cauliflower and the second for sausages.
Obviously, if one of the dishes in the trio speaks to you more than the other
two, you could double that one up and skip one of the others.

Three nights of cauliflower

A fresh whole cauliflower is a splendid thing – the cloudlike white florets,
the sturdy green leaves – but the size can feel daunting when cooking for
one. Here is how to get every ounce of goodness from it without getting
bored. The flavours are Italian on one night, Chinese on the next and French
on the third. In the first two recipes you can use the green leaves as well as
the white florets, but do taste a leaf first to check that it is fresh.


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Crispy cauliflower with pasta and mustard croutons

This might be my favourite vegetable-based pasta sauce of all time, even
though it’s more dry than saucy. It’s based on the spicy broccoli and
cauliflower in The Zuni Café Cookbook by Judy Rodgers, but I’ve taken out
the olives, anchovies and broccoli and added lemon zest for brightness and
mustard croutons for crunch and joy. The secret is cutting the cauliflower
small enough that it crisps up quickly in olive oil in a pan. If you double it
up, it makes a good lunchbox meal the next day.

Serves 1

For the pasta
⅓ of a cauliflower (about 200g, white and green)
80g (3oz)pasta, any shape (it’s particularly lovely with orecchiette or shells)
1½ tablespoons olive oil
1 teaspoon capers
½ teaspoon fennel seeds
2 cloves of garlic, chopped
Zest of ½ an unwaxed lemon
A pinch of chilli flakes
A handful of flat-leaf parsley, chopped

For the croutons
A thin slice of sourdough bread
A little olive oil
1 teaspoon Dijon mustard

Start by slicing the white cauliflower lengthways and then crossways into
fine pieces. Some of the pieces will be no bigger than crumbs. This is good.

Cut the leaves small.Then make the croutons. Cut the sourdough into small cubes. Warm
some oil in a frying pan, add the Dijon and mix in the bread cubes, stirring
with a wooden spoon until crisp and brown. Set aside in a bowl, wipe out
the pan and use it to cook the cauliflower.

Put the pasta on to cook in plenty of salted boiling water and set the
timer. The cauliflower will be ready in roughly the same amount of time.

Warm the oil in the frying pan over a high heat and add the cauliflower
pieces. Cook without stirring too much until it is brown and crispy. Season
with salt and add the capers, fennel seeds, garlic, lemon and chilli. Stir for a
minute or so more. Add a couple of tablespoons of water and continue to
cook until it is tender and the flavours have merged. Check for seasoning. It
might need a squeeze of lemon.

When the pasta is done, lift it into the pan of cauliflower with a spider or
strainer, stir well, add the parsley and serve, topped with the mustard croutons.


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Sticky cauliflower with cashews

This reminds me of the chicken with cashews I ate the very first time I went
to a Chinese restaurant as a child and which seemed unbelievably
glamorous to me then. Here, the cauliflower is sautéd until richly brown
and then simmered in a sauce of soy, water and cooking wine seasoned with
mouth-numbing Sichuan peppers or a little chilli before getting a final
scattering of crunchy cashews. It is dark brown and sticky.
Some might call this ‘Kung Pao Cauliflower’ in homage to a Sichuanese
Chinese dish called Gong Bao Chicken (named after an imperial governor
of Sichuan), including peanuts and handfuls of seared dried chillies.

Serves 1

A handful of cashews, roasted and salted or unsalted and raw
1½ tablespoons neutral oil
⅓ of a cauliflower (about 200g, white parts cut into bite-size florets and
green parts shredded)
1 teaspoon corn flour, plus extra to dust the cauliflower
1 teaspoon cooking wine (Shaoxing rice wine or cooking sake or dry sherry or Marsala)
2 teaspoons sugar
2–3 teaspoons soy sauce (it depends how salty you like things)
2 teaspoons rice vinegar
½ teaspoon sesame oil
½ teaspoon Sichuan peppercorns, ground with a pestle and mortar, or a
pinch of chilli flakes (optional)
3 spring onions, trimmed and sliced
2 cloves of garlic, peeled and grated, plus the equivalent amount of
ginger, grated

To serve

Cooked jasmine rice (½ cup of rice simmered in a covered pan in ¾ cup
of water for 12 minutes, then left to stand for 10–30 minutes)Black sesame seeds
If the cashews are raw, start by cooking them. Heat 1 tablespoon of oil over
a medium-high heat in a wok or your largest frying or sauté pan. Add the
nuts and cook, stirring often, for about a minute or two or until golden.
Remove to a plate with a spider or slotted spoon. If the cashews are roasted
and salted, skip this stage.

Dust the cauliflower with a little cornflour and add it to the oil in the pan
and cook for a good 8–10 minutes, or until nicely brown and softened. You
may need to put the lid on from time to time to speed things up. Meanwhile,
whisk together the cooking wine, cornflour, sugar, soy sauce, vinegar,
sesame oil and 125ml water in a bowl; this is the sauce. When the
cauliflower is browned and tender-crisp, add the remaining ½ tablespoon of
oil, the Sichuan pepper or chilli and the spring onions and cook for a
minute. Add the garlic and ginger and after a few seconds add the sauce,
scraping it up from the bottom to get all the cornflour. Simmer for a minute
or so or until shiny and sticky (but if it is too sticky, keep adding splashes of
water as needed).

Add the cashews and serve with the rice, sprinkled with black sesame
seeds. I like to take the cooked rice, pack it into a teacup or ramekin and
turn it out in the centre of the plate before arranging the sticky cauliflower
all around.


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Cauliflower cheese soufflé

The food writer Elizabeth David described ‘an omelette and a glass of
wine’ as an ideal solitary meal. She was right (she usually was). But on
days when you feel like some gentle kitchen therapy, a soufflé and a glass
of wine is even better. It’s far less work than you imagine (assuming you
have a cheap electric hand whisk) but the ethereal airiness of soufflé makes
dinner for one feel like a grand occasion. To serve yourself a soufflé when
there is no one else to be impressed by its rise is a deep form of self-care.
Adding cauliflower to a cheese soufflé makes it a meal in one, but it’s even
better with a green salad and some baguette. I like to make this in a little
20cm Falcon enamelware pie dish, but if you have a small soufflé dish that
would also work. Soufflé sounds posh but it is actually no pricier or trickier
to make than a macaroni cheese.

Serves 1

Butter, for greasing the dish, plus 10g more
100g (4oz)cauliflower (white parts only), cut into very small florets
1 tablespoon plain flour
80ml (1/3 cup) milk
A bay leaf (optional)
40g (3 Tbsp) any strong hard cheese such as Parmesan, Gouda,
Cheddar or Gruyère, grated
A grating of nutmeg
A pinch of cayenne
1 egg yolk
2 egg whites
A few black sesame seeds (optional)

Rub butter around the inside of your pie or soufflé dish.

Preheat the oven to 200°C fan.(400° F)

Cook the cauliflower in boiling lightly salted water for 8 minutes, or
until soft and slightly overdone. As soon as the cauliflower has gone into
the water, melt the 10g of butter in another small saucepan over a lowish
heat and stir in the flour, using a balloon whisk. Cook for around a minute,
stirring constantly.

Off the heat, whisk in the milk, a bit at a time, still whisking thoroughly. It will
look lumpy, but have faith. If you give it time and enough whisking, the lumps
should smooth away. Return to a low heat, add the bay leaf (if using) and
simmer for a minute, stirring constantly, until it is thick. Stir in the cheese
until melted and season quite strongly with salt and nutmeg and cayenne.

Soufflé mix always needs to be seasoned a tiny bit more than you think because
the flavour will dilute when you add the whites. Fish out the bay leaf.

Drain the cooked cauliflower and mash it into the sauce with a fork – a
few pieces of cauliflower are nice. Mix the yolk into the sauce. In a clean
mixing bowl, whisk the whites with a hand-held electric whisk until they
are white and snowy. Add a dollop of the whisked whites into the sauce to
lighten it. Now fold in the rest of the whites, using a large metal spoon or
silicone spatula.

Pile the mixture into your prepared tin or dish, sprinkle with a few sesame
seeds and bake for 15 minutes, or until nicely risen and browned. You can
cut it in the middle to check if it is done, but know that a perfect cheese
soufflé will always look a little wet (but not sloshing) in the middle. Eat with
a green salad and good bread or toast.

From "The Secret of Cooking"
https://www.goodreads.com/book/show/77264998-the-secret-of-cooking


Remember cauliflower is packed with a virtual treasure chest of useful nutrients!
Mrs JP and I killed a whole head (steamed then roasted w/Parmesan cheese) with our steak the other night...