The secrets to cauliflower-crust pizza you’ll want to devour

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 f actthat cauliflower is super versatile, so I was a little more openminded when myfi an ce, 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 dif- ference in the world. While I wait to spoon it on the crusts baked the crusts twice as long until after they’ve come out as she suggested, I followed of the oven and rested for a her instructions to avoid bak- few minutes, to firm up. A ing the toppings on the crust little crumbled soft cheese at all. Instead, you cook a and a drizzle of olive oil finmixtur eofredonion, garlic, ishes the job. tomatoes, Swiss chard and Between her approach and olives on the stove top and mine, we have a winner.