CAULIFLOWER, ROMANESCO, AND SUNCHOKE

Cauliflower has been low on my list of palatable vegetables for a long time. It's bland color, vague relation to broccoli, and dubious odor threw me off for a long, long time...until, that is, last week. It was raining hard and my mom and I took shelter in the cinnamon sugared warmth of Huckleberry Cafe. If you've been following my posts here, you know that Huckleberry is my go to everything restaurant, "everything" meaning breakfast and baked goods, but honestly, is there really anything else? We got there after eleven, which means they stopped serving my favorite poached eggs over market vegetables, so I opted for the fried egg sandwich while my mom had two bites of whatever she ordered then squirreled it away into to-go boxes for a snack later. What I do remember is her soup. That spicy cauliflower soup. I had a spoonful on a whim and then another and another and then my mom snatched it away like moms do and put it in its to-go container.

After drying off from the rain I immediately began investigating soup ideas and came up with this recipe. Spicy, flavorful, creamy (with no cream!), and slightly sweet and nutty from the sunchokes. Sunchokes are another recent favorite of mine. Otherwise known as Jerusalem Artichokes, these roots may look like ginger, but when roasted they are scrumptious and sweet, with a little burnt caramel thing going on at the edges. Raw, they're not unlike jicama. While shopping for sunchokes I bumped into romanesco, a cousin of cauliflower and broccoli. I've often stared at romenesco, taken aback by its alien "Alabama Hills" landscape, intrigued but intimidated. I was already buying sunchokes and cauliflower, so I thought, "Aw, screw it, whats another weird vegetable?" Luckily my laissez faire attitude paid off and the romanesco was delicious. All I can say is let it get a deep deep brown, the crunchy bits are the best. Enjoy!

Spicy Cauliflower and Roasted Sunchoke Soup

Ingredients:

1/4 cup olive oil, plus two tablespoons
2 onion, peeled and diced

2 cloves garlic, minced
2 teaspoons coriander seeds, crushed
2 teaspoons cumin seeds, crushed

1/2 teaspoon chile powder

1/4 teaspoon dried chile flakes
2 large heads of cauliflower, trimmed of green leaves and coarsely chopped (about 10 cups)

1 lb sunchokes, peeled and cubed

Salt
Fresh-ground black pepper

8 cups chicken broth
4 cups water (if needed)

Peel and cube the sunchoke, coat it in 2 tablespoons of olive oil, sprinkle with salt and pepper and roast in a 425 F oven for 30 minutes, or until soft and deeply browned. Heat a large pot over medium heat, add a 1/4 cup of olive oil, add the onion, coriander seeds, cumin seeds, chile powder, chile flakes, a pinch of salt and pepper, and lastly the garlic. When very soft but not browned, cauliflower, sunchokes and chicken broth. Raise the heat and bring to a boil, stirring occasionally. Reduce the heat to a simmer and cook until the cauliflower is very tender, about 30 minutes. Pour the soup into a blender or using an immersion circulator, blitz the soup until luxuriously smooth. Add water if it feels too thick. Taste and adjust the seasoning. Enjoy!

Roasted Romanesco and Sunchokes

2 heads Romanesco, florets cut off and halved

1 lb sunchokes, peeled and cubed

olive oil

pinch of chili flakes

salt and pepper

Coat the romanesco and sunchokes in olive oil and seasoning, and roast at 400 F for 30-45 minutes. The darker brown the romanesco gets the better, it becomes like candy! When everything is tender take out of the oven and serve hot or room temperature. You can dress it with a squeeze of lemon or some minced garlic if you like as well. Enjoy!