Cheese Cauliflower

Been a busy February and March for me, traveling around Japan, finding run-of-the-mill culinary wonders in the least likely of places, learning the language, and just living the dream by merely living here. It's been an amazing six months and it's still so surreal to me. That said, my wallet's taken a sizable blow due to all the times I've been eating out instead of cooking at home. So today, I've decided to stay home for once and settle for some homemade cooking, especially now that my finals for the term are all over. But I'm sick and tired of the curry that I've been eating since Monday, and if I have to see it again I'm gonna barf.

I was running through some ideas as to what I can make this time, and interestingly, I found one from a recent PC Gamer article about the people making Stardew Valley's recipes a reality. In particular, I went to Stardew Kitchen, and what caught my attention most out of Helena's remake of SV's recipes was her Cheese Cauliflower. Her version involves the addition of macaroni and a béchamel with reduced pale ale in tribute to Pam, whom players can learn the recipe from. I was not only impressed by the result, but I also felt a genuine desire to do a version of my own… Using only an induction and a rice cooker.

This recipe is enough for four.

Cheese Cauliflower

• 1 head cauliflower
• 150 g penne pasta

Béchamel

• 60 g butter
• 60 g flour
• 130 g milk
• 70 g pale ale
• 4 sprigs thyme
• 150 g gouda cheese
• salt as needed
• pepper as needed

1. Start off by boiling your pasta. Boil some water, put some salt inside, and when it starts boiling, put in your pasta. Let it boil for 8-10 minutes until it becomes al dente (a tad soft on the outside but chewy as you bite onto it). Set it aside when you're finished. How salty your pasta will be depends on how salty your water is, so keep that in mind when you put salt in the water. When it's finished, drain out the water but leave a little inside so the pasta doesn't dry out.
2. While your pasta is boiling, start cutting up your cauliflower into small stalks. The green leaves aren't edible guys. Get rid of them.
3. On a separate pot, start preparing your béchamel. Set the temperature to a low heat (170°C) and mix in your butter and flour together. When you start seeing that they've formed little lumps of dough, add in your milk and cheese then stir gently.
4. Add the pale ale to your sauce. Raise the temperature to a very high heat (200°C) and let the mixture boil until the alcohol doesn't taste as potent in the mixture. Season as needed.
5. Blanch your cauliflower. This involves boiling a pot of water with salt, and then putting in your cauliflower. Leave it there for a full minute then strain the water out. Dredge it immediately in ice cold water.
6. In your rice cooker, put in the pasta first, then your cauliflower. Pour in the sauce.
7. Set your rice cooker to cook. For Japanese rice cookers, set them to hayadaki (早炊き). When it boils, mix everything inside.
8. Put thyme inside the rice cooker and let the herb's smell infuse.
   

Your béchamel should look something like this.

And that's it. There's a little more to do with this one but overall it's a very simple recipe. This is more like an inspired version of Helena's, and it's more of a creamy, cheese cauliflower pasta than anything else.

I was thinking of possibly gratinating the surface with some grated cheese and breadcrumbs/biscuits to get a little crispy and cheesy taste going. Unfortunately, because the oven toaster in the sharehouse is too tiny and that I can't possibly achieve any crispiness with my rice cooker, I omitted the use of both and settled for a mix-all-in-one kind of dish. Not that it's impossible though; theoretically, the only other way for you to achieve it if you didn't have an oven nor a salamander was to use a blow torch. I have not tried this myself but it's worth a shot for any of you out there feeling a little adventurous. But if you don't wanna accidentally burn the house down because you didn't know how to turn it on (or off, if you've turned it on already), then that's no problem. But if you still want to eat something crispy with your pasta, a simple garlic buttered toast does the trick too.

The consistency of your béchamel should be a little thick. The taste of your sauce should be a little sharp, but that also depends on the ale you use. I used a Japanese ale called Yona Yona, which has a fruity taste that goes on to be a little crisp at the end.

If your pasta has a noticeable bitter aftertaste from the ale, put in a little more milk or cream. This should dampen the bitterness, but don't add so much that the aroma of the ale is no longer noticeable.

If you don't have fresh herbs, it's okay. Neither do I. I use a thyme seasoning, mainly because I can't keep herbs in the sharehouse (I don't have space for it, and my room is small enough as it is).

As I said earlier, you must make sure your boiling water is properly seasoned for your pasta, otherwise your pasta will taste bland. Same logic applies to your cauliflower. Bear in mind as well that your cauliflower must come out crisp and not mushy after you blanch it.

Now that we've gotten all that out of the way, it's time for you to dig in! If you have any ale leftover, feel free to drink it with your pasta. Personally I prefer lemon soda myself… But to each their own!