Sun Sentinel Palm Beach Edition
For the crusts
When it comes to trendy foods, I’m no early adopter. It took me years to get past my quibbles with quinoa, to dive into the mysteries of chia pudding and, most recently, to tackle a cauliflower pizza crust.
As with the first two items on that list, the cauliflower pizza I tried a couple of years ago was so disappointing (soggy), I dismissed the entire concept as not worth the time. But then I got on the cauliflower rice bandwagon, making it virtually every week and playing around with various spices and add-ins. I had come around to the fact that cauliflower is super versatile, so I was a little more open-minded when my fiance, trying to cut down on carbs, mail-ordered frozen crusts from a California company (Cali’flour Foods) and asked me to try them out.
When I made them as instructed, they tasted good. But I didn’t like the soft texture, which couldn’t stand up to any toppings. When I cooked the crusts a lot longer, they became crisper, holding up better under caramelized onions, roasted squash and blue cheese that I added in a second round of baking. And when I accidentally cooked one until it was close to burnt, we broke it into great crackers and scooped up hummus with them.
So my first lesson was to push the baking time. Next, when I tried making the crusts from scratch, pulsing cauliflower florets in the food processor and then steaming them for a few minutes until tender, I learned another crucial step: squeezing the cauliflower in a kitchen towel to get rid of as much liquid as possible. That helps avoid sogginess.
That technique was from a recipe in “Eat More Greens” by Zita Steyn (Quadrille, 2017), and it included one final tip that made all the difference in the world. While I baked the crusts twice as long as she suggested, I followed her instructions to avoid baking the toppings on the crust at all. Instead, you cook a mixture of red onion, garlic, tomatoes, Swiss chard and olives on the stove top and wait to spoon it on the crusts until after they’ve come out of the oven and rested for a few minutes, to firm up. A little crumbled soft cheese and a drizzle of olive oil finishes the job.
Between her approach and mine, we have a winner. hot. large head cauliflower (2 1/2 to 3 pounds) (may substitute 2 pounds cauliflower florets or store-bought cauliflower rice) cup water large eggs teaspoons dried Italian herb blend cup finely ground almonds or almond meal cup finely grated Parmigiano-Reggiano or pecorino Romano cheese teaspoon fine sea salt teaspoon freshly ground black pepper tablespoons extra-virgin olive oil, plus more for drizzling large red onion, thinly sliced teaspoon kosher or sea salt, plus more as needed pint cherry or grape tomatoes, halved cloves garlic, finely chopped ounces Swiss chard, stemmed and chopped into bite-size pieces cup pitted Kalamata olives ounces feta or crumbly goat cheese Heat two heavy, flat, metal trays or baking sheets on the middle rack of the oven at 425 degrees. 230 calories, 12 g protein, 13 g carbohydrates, 16 g fat, 5 g saturated fat, 80 mg cholesterol, 610 mg sodium, 5 g dietary fiber, 4 g sugar