The New Complete Book of Food

 The New Complete Book of Food

Storing This Food

Keep cauliflower in a cool, humid place to safeguard its vitamin C content.

Preparing This Food

Pull off and discard any green leaves still attached to the cauliflower and slice off the woody

stem and core. Then plunge the cauliflower, head down, into a bowl of salted ice water to

flush out any insects hiding in the head. To keep the cauliflower crisp when cooked, add a

teaspoon of vinegar to the water. You can steam or bake the cauliflower head whole or break

it up into florets for faster cooking.

What Happens When You Cook This Food

Cauliflower contains mustard oils (isothiocyanates), natural chemicals that give the vegeta-

ble its taste but break down into a variety of smelly sulfur compounds (including hydrogen

sulfide and ammonia) when the cauliflower is heated. The longer you cook the cauliflower,

the better it will taste but the worse it will smell. Adding a slice of bread to the cooking

water may lessen the odor; keeping a lid on the pot will stop the smelly molecules from

floating off into the air.

Cooking cauliflower in an aluminum pot will intensify its odor and turn its creamy

white anthoxanthin pigments yellow; iron pots will turn anthoxanthins blue green or

brown. Like red and blue anthocyanin pigments (see beets, blackberries, blueberries), antho-

xanthins hold their color best in acids. To keep cauliflower white, add a tablespoon of lemon

juice, lime juice, vinegar, or milk to the cooking water.

Steaming or stir-frying cauliflower preserves the vitamin C that would be lost if the

vegetable were cooked for a long time or in a lot of water.

How Other Kinds of Processing Affect This Food

Freezing. Before it is frozen, cauliflower must be blanched to inactivate catalase and per-

oxidase, enzymes that would otherwise continue to ripen and eventually deteriorate the

vegetable. According to researchers at Cornell University, cauliflower will lose less vitamin C

if it is blanched in very little water (two cups cauliflower in two tbsp. water) in a microwave-

safe plastic bag in a microwave oven for four minutes at 600–700 watts. Leave the bag open

an inch at the top so steam can escape and the bag does not explode.

Medical Uses and/or Benefits

Protection against certain cancers. Naturally occurring chemicals (indoles, isothiocyanates,

glucosinolates, dithiolethiones, and phenols) in cauliflower, Brussels sprouts, broccoli, cab-

bage, and other cruciferous vegetables appear to reduce the risk of some cancers, perhaps