Chou-fleur au Gratin

Chou-fleur au gratin (cauliflower under a browned cheese crust) teaches the governing rule of every vegetable gratin: the vegetable must be dry before the sauce touches it. Wet cauliflower loosens Mornay beneath the crust, leaving a puddle where there should be a rich sauce clinging to every floret.

The original kitchen assumed a saucier with Mornay already warm, brigade-sized dishes, and a salamander fierce enough to form the gratin at once. Your kitchen needs neither a stock kept hot nor another pair of hands. A prepared Mornay sauce, a wide skillet, a shallow gratin dish, and the broiler give the same result for four people. One cook, one stove, one evening.

The separate stations and oversized portions were scaffolding, so they go. Drying the cauliflower in butter, moulding it into a dome, covering it completely, and finishing it with cheese, raspings, and melted butter are the dish, so they stay. Drain patiently, blot thoroughly, then keep the cauliflower moving in butter until the pan holds no loose water. That is the step that decides everything.