Cauliflower au Gratin

We would do this a bit differently, these days.

The technical definition of a gratin is a dish topped with something (usually bread crumbs, cheese, or both) and then browned. It’s a broad definition. When you get traditional French onion soup in a crock that’s been topped with a piece of bread and melted cheese, it’s a gratin. When you get an artichoke filled with a souffle, topped with bread crumbs and browned (pelase tell me you do this), it’s a gratin. The chorizo and chilies macaroni and cheese from last weekend is a gratin.

Traditionally speaking, you’d use a bechamel, but this recipe calls for cream of celery soup. I typically put celery seed in bechamel for gratins, so I can see the attraction. This might still be worth trying. But one thing we would absolutely do differently is: we wouldn’t cook cauliflower this much.

It’s just a cultural thing that’s changed over the years, primarily due to the introduction of Eastern cooking to our palates. We no longer expect vegetables to have all texture cooked out of them. Additionally, when we didn’t know to peel our cauliflower, we had to cook it longer to get the indigestible, fibrous skin soft enough to chew. Now that we know better, there isn’t a need to cook it for this long.

A family recipe provided by Jennifer Kiel of Washington, DC, from her mother-in-law’s collection, started in Kent, Ohio.