I wonder if boiling cauli with a little bit of lemon would have the effect it does when you do this with zucchini, where it strips out some of the taste (making it even more nicely 'absorb' whatever you then spice it with/cook it with)?

PJ

cleo, where's the lasanga recipe????? Can't wait!
Chris

Great thread, thanks for all these ideas!

I'm pretty sure that with cauli being in the 'cabbage' family, the classic method of cooking with a little milk or cream tends to offset or soften that sharpness, that cabbagey scent...somehow.

Just wanted to report back in--I grated and sauteed the cauli the other night and then tossed in some shrimp and chunks of pork. Was excellent!!!

I'll update, too.

I tried it with frozen cauli, steamed, then let dry, then grated with FP grating tool and then stir-fry.

I didn't care for it too much, while it tasted good made to taste like oriental, it was too mushy for me. Didn't have the mouth-feel of rice at all.

I prefer using fresh raw cauli, pulsing to pellets in FP, then stir-fry. Much much closer to rice consistency in the mouth.

Thanks for posting this, Elle. I was wondering about the whole texture thing.

I'm surprised no one has bumped this yet...I'm watching the CBC My Big Fat Diet special, and one of the residents of Alert Bay is making cauliflower fried rice!

Oh, are they repeating it today, too? There's a LOT of discussion about this fab documentary in the Media/Research forum!

http://www.cbc.ca/thelens/bigfatdiet/

...and those folks in Alert Bay have increased the sale of cauliflower alone by 400% in Alert Bay, never mind what they've done to the sale of whipping cream and cheeses and such...

Cool, eh?

but would it work if you cooked cauli till it was nice and soft, then put it through the ricer?

I gotta ask... how do you shred those small cooked cauliflower flowers? It seems like they're too small and delicate to shred by hand without taking your part of the skin on your fingers off in the process too.

Nancy-- I buy cauliflower that comes in larger florets. Some brands, however, sell crappy, small florets. I've learned that the hard way. Now I only buy my cauliflower from Wal-Mart (the Great Value brand).

Well, probably, if the holes were big enough. That's why I said it was for cooked soft veg...

The texture is different (between cooked starchy potatoes and cooked cauli) so the end result will be different, more mushy I would think.

I don't think it's worth the effort and the cleanup, personally. Cooked cauli is easy to mash and I like a coarser texture with some lumps in it personally.

As I wrote some time back in another thread, I have a ricer from my old potato days so I tried it with cooked cauli. Doesn't work worth a darn! Even when cooked to really soft, the little bitty stem parts that hold the tiny florets together have too much fibre (Canadian spelling!) to go through the holes so you just end up with mush IN the ricer, and very little going through. Plus, as Jude said, it's decidedly NOT FUN to clean up afterward!! I now use my old pastry blender to chop the cooked cauli and the ricer has graduated to a box destined for the local thrift store.

Glenda

Oh I was thinking of packaged cauliflower where it's broken into small pieces. Silly me.

Thankfully my food processor does this nicely for me. I'm not fond of grating!