Skip to main content
Main

Salting Cauliflower

This recipe describes salting cauliflower by brining it in coarse sea salt for several days.

From an old cookbook · modernised transcription
From a historical cookbook (Internet Archive) · 3 ingredients
Jump to recipe ↓

Salting Cauliflower

Ingredients

Directions

Prepare

  1. Trim off all the green leaves from the cauliflower.

  2. Place the cauliflower in a tank or cask and cover it with cold water.

Brine

  1. Add 5 pounds of coarse sea salt to the water and let the cauliflower brine for 3 days.

  2. Drain off the brine to keep the cauliflower nice and white.

  3. Cover the cauliflower again with fresh water and add 8 pounds of coarse sea salt.

  4. Test the brine. If the brine is below 45 degrees on Beaume's scale, add enough salt to reach the required strength.

Recipe from a historical cookbook (Internet Archive).

Transcribed from a scanned cookbook and modernised for today's kitchens. Where the book gave no heat or time, or said "a moderate oven", the temperatures and times here may be modern equivalents rather than the book's own figures.

Explore the science

What each ingredient does

Cauliflower
The main ingredient that is preserved and kept white through the brining process.
Coarse sea salt
Draws water out of the cauliflower and preserves it through the brine.

The step that matters

Testing the brine strength. Salt concentration controls how well the cauliflower is preserved. If the brine is too weak, it may not preserve the vegetable, so the brine must be tested and topped up with salt until it reaches the required strength on Beaume's scale.

“What each ingredient does” and “The step that matters” were written by Claude from this recipe’s own method and reviewed in samples by CompKitchen.

You might also like

Tomato SoupTomato Soup526 recipesBrown BreadBrown Bread461 recipesMutton BrothMutton Broth292 recipesYorkshire PuddingYorkshire Pudding264 recipes