Is it cauliflower? Or broccoli?

I first came across this extraordinary-looking vegetable a couple of years ago at New York’s Union Square farmers market, attracted by its chartreuse hue and mesmerizing fractal pattern. A sign at the stand proclaimed it to be “romanesco cauliflower”. When I bought it this past week from the Capay Organic store at the Ferry Building, I was told it was a kind of broccoli. I’ve also seen it sold as Broccoli Romanesco, Roman broccoli and Broccoflower. According to Elizabeth Schneider’s exhaustive reference, “Vegetables from Amaranth to Zucchini”, the consensus among plant breeders is that it’s a kind of cauliflower.


Regardless of what branch of brassica oleracea it most closely hews to, it’s delicious. It tastes like cauliflower, but with a distinct, pleasing nutty quality and a nubbly texture that sets it apart from both broccoli and cauliflower.



I cooked mine two ways - I blanched a batch of it just to see what the unadulterated taste of it was like; and I slow-cooked it in a variation of a recipe from Alice Waters’ new book. While it is very pleasant lightly cooked on its own, slow-cooking it turned it soft and meltingly velvety, which was a nice surprise.

Here are 2 ideas for what to do with this broccoli/cauliflower/whatever next time you can’t resist buying it:

Blanched Romanesco Cauliflower:

Bring 4 c of water to a rolling boil. Snap all the stems off from the central stalk and set aside. Then, quarter the stem crosswise. Salt the water; toss in the cauliflower and cover. Cook 3 minutes, or up to 5 if you prefer the end result to be a bit more tender.


Slow-cooked Romanesco Cauliflower:

1 head romanesco cauliflower (about 1 1/2 lbs)
3 medium cloves garlic
3 tbsp olive oil
1 tsp bacon fat (optional)
1/2 c vegetable or chicken stock

Cut the cauliflower into 1/4 inch slices crosswise, then mince. Mince the garlic. Heat the olive oil and bacon fat (if you’re using it) in a heavy-bottomed pan and sautee the garlic lightly. Add the cauliflower, stir to coat in oil, add stock, reduce heat to low and cover. Cook for 45 minutes, stirring occasionally and adding more liquid as necessary. Salt to taste.

This makes a really nice omelette stuffing, and is also great over angel hair pasta with bits of bacon or prosciutto.

This could be you

You know you've done this yourself a couple times. You know, gone to the farmer's market, seen all the amazing stuffs and bought everything in sight. Today, I went to the Heart of the City Farmer's Market and loaded up.

This market gets poo-pooed a lot because it isn't as fancy-schmancy as the Ferry Plaza one or because not everyone there is organic (gasp!), but it's still great. Lots of Asian farmers selling all different kinds of eggplant, bitter melon, okra and an unbelievable variety of unusual greens like sweet potato leaf, water spinach and what looked to me like cucumber leaves. Where else can you get local, ORGANIC ginger??? Or fresh young jicama with the beans still attached (as opposed to the enormous, more mature jicama usually spied at Asian and Latino markets)? OK, OK, so those two particular examples are from farms growing around Fresno, which is almost 200 mi from San Francisco. But that's still a lot closer than China or Hawaii, which is where most of the ginger you see around here is from.
Plus, De'Santis Bella Frutta sells here. I'll have to muster up the courage to talk more with them, but they're Italian and grow all kinds of very unusual and unusually delicious fruits - sweet lemons, kaffir limes, buddha's hand citron, moscato grapes and AMAZING figs. You'll also find the best tomato deals around at this market. I don't usually like to tout how cheap food is (give the farmers a break! they work really hard!), but there's an unbelievable profusion of heirloom tomatoes and cherry tomatoes to be had at this market. I got 2 pounds of mixed sungold cherry tomatoes for $3.00 from a Chinese vendor towards the edge of the market and $2.00/lb dry-farmed Early Girl tomatoes. Can't beat that.


Here's today's haul: eggplants, peppers, the aforementioned moscato grapes, romanesco cauliflower, english peas, armenian cukes, romano beans, fava beans and glorious, glorious tomatoes.



OK, so it doesn't take a goddamn genius to come up with a salad (tomatoes, cukes and blanched romano beans). But it was good anyway.




Romesco cauliflower stew with cherry tomatoes, fava beans and chicken over brown rice!
There was quite a bit left over, but this dish worked nicely over pasta two days later. I separated out the chicken and shredded it, took the vegetables and all the liquid and pureed it with a bit of sour cream and asiago cheese. Voila! A totally different dish.