Buttered Colle-floure (Buttered Cauliflower)

Buttered Collie-floure (Buttered Cauliflower) is a traditional Elizabethan recipe for a cauliflower cooked in milk and served with a cream and butter sauce. The full recipe is presented here and I hope you enjoy this classic Elizabethan version of Sauce for Buttered Cauliflower.

prep time

20 minutes

cook time

15 minutes

Total Time:

35 minutes

Serves:

Rating:

Tags : Vegetarian Recipes Vegetable Recipes British Recipes

Original Recipe

Buttered Colle-floure (A Booke of Cookerie)

Take a ripe Colle-floure and cut off the buddes, boyle them in milke with a little Mace while [until] they be very tender, then poure them into a Cullender, and let the Milke run cleane form them, then take a ladle full of Creame, being boylled with a little whole Mace, putting to it a Ladlefull of thicke butter, mingle them together with a little Sugar, dish up your flowers upon sippets, poure your butter and cream hot upon it strowing on a little slicst Nutmeg and salt, and serve it to the Table hot.

Modern Redaction

Ingredients:

1 large cauliflower (or 2 heads of broccoli)
600ml milk

1 large sliver of mace

For the Sauce
120ml single cream
1 tbsp butter
¼ tsp freshly-grated nutmeg
¼ tsp sugar
3 slices of hot buttered toast quartered into triangles.

Method:

Cut the stem of the cauliflower (or the broccoli) and separate into florets then rinse under running water. Meanwhile, heat the milk in a saucepan to just below boiling point and add the mace and florets. Lower the heat and simmer until the florets are just tender (about 14 minutes for cauliflower and 8 for broccoli). At the same time that the vegetables are cooking add the cream, butter, nutmeg, sugar and salt to a saucepan and heat to just below the boiling point.

Arrange the toast triangles on a heated serving bowl, remove the cauliflower (or broccoli) from the milk and place on the toast. Pour the sauce over this and serve immediately.