The final dish from our month of The Cauliflower comes from the kitchen of the Delaire Graff Estate in the Cape Winelands of South Africa – from Chef Michael Deg, featured in our blog, The Mind of a Chef, who has created a perhaps the ultimate cauliflower recipe. Discover more below.

“At Delaire Graff Restaurant we always have cauliflower on the menu in some form, it makes an incredible puree that we blend with brown butter and Parmesan and often serve it with line fish. We also have a cauliflower gratin on as a side dish, we blanch our cauliflower florets then mix it with a heavy Parmesan and aged cheddar cheese sauce, we make a crumb with panko crumbs, more Parmesan and parsley, then bake in the oven. It’s very rich but oh so satisfying for winter days.

“However, on our dinner tasting menu, at the moment, we actually have a dish called ‘Cauliflower’ and it is a celebration of the vegetable. The dish has cauliflower prepared in four different ways and is probably one of the favourite dishes on our 7 course tasting menu; we pair the dish with our 2014 Banghoek reserve chardonnay.” – Michael Deg

Recipe (serves 4)

There are four parts to this dish:
1.  The puree | 2. The risotto | 3. Tempura | 4. Foam

1.     The puree

• Ingredients: 3 cauliflowers chopped roughly, 2 slice onions, 200g butter, 1lt cream, and 100g grated parmesan.
• Method: In a large bottom pot sweat of the onions until soft the add the chopped cauliflower cover with cream and cook slowly until the cauliflower is cooked through, then transfer to a thermomix and blend with the grated parmesan until smooth and season with salt.

2.     The risotto

• Ingredients: 1 diced onion ,2 bulbs dice garlic, 100g butter, 500g Arborio rice, 2 glasses Delaire Graff white wine, 500ml vegetable stock, 4 table spoons cauliflower puree, 100g Parmesan, chopped chives.
• Method:  In a large bottom pot, sweat off the onions and garlic, when soft add the Arborio, then the white wine and bring to the boil to cook out the alcohol, then add the vegetable stock a little at a time until the rice is just cooked but has a small bite to it, then to finish add the cauliflower puree and the parmesan and salt and stir until cooked, it should resemble your morning porridge, lately add in your chives

3.     Tempura

• Ingredients: 1 head cauliflower broken into small florets, 100ml white wine, 50ml white wine vinegar, 25ml sugar, 10 fennel seeds,1 star anise, 10g turmeric, 200g tempura flower, 200ml sparkling water.
• Method: make a pickle mix with the wine, vinegar, sugar and spices. Bring it the boil then take off the heat add the cauliflower florets, leave to stand for 24 hours. Then to serve mix the flour and water together to make the batter then take the pickled cauliflower and dip in the mix and fry until crispy.

4.     Foam

• Ingredients: 200ml milk, 100ml cream, 50ml cauliflower puree, 100g grated parmesan, 5g soya lecithin.
• Method: Bring the milk, cream, puree to the boil, take off the heat add the parmesan and soya lecithin and blend with a hand blender to make a foam.

5.     Garnish with parmesan crisps and nasturtium