→ Thread Count Lab: ╳ Good Enough To Eat

╳ In season between October through April, cauliflower is not only delicious it’s inspirational too! The worlds of design and food have collided and designers (some old, some new) have turned their attention to all aspects of food: the ingredients, the culinary process, the design of the kitchen and even the objects we wear and decorate our homes with.

╳ Cauliflower Bowl designed by duo Katharina Mischer and Thomas Traxler is part of a series of bowls made from ‘produce’ called Reversed Volumes. Reversed volumes are bowls that are shaped by capturing the imprint of a fruit or vegetable. The space between the vessel and vegetable is filled with a special ceramic powder, which becomes really hard without being fired, and after the original organic material is removed, the bowl preserves the actual imprint. Each cast bowl is unique as no two organic moulds are the same (did you ever see identical caulis?)

╳ Wedgwood Creamware, on the other hand, has a long history and was revolutionary in that it introduced true fine china into the market. Easy to produce, relatively inexpensive to make, easily decorated, and desired by royalty and ‘commoners’ alike, a piece of Wedgwood’s creamware sold for a just a few shillings. A tureen, by far one of the largest and most expensive pieces of china to produce and sell, sold for only seven shillings. (At the time, Wedgwood’s employees made between a 14 shillings and four pounds a week, depending on their expertise.)

╳ Maybe seen in the form of jewellery, as lighting or even as a tureen, the most famous incarnation the humble cauliflower can adopt though is the quintessentially English dish ‘cauliflower cheese’. Often served as an accompaniment to Sunday roasts along with potatoes and other vegetables, this brown speckled, creamy dish transports us back to childhood, with memories of the lingering smell as it bakes in the oven. To pay proper respect to the cauliflower it’s only right that Thread Count Lab should share our favourite recipe with you...enjoy!

╳ Ingredients

1 litre milk
2 bay leaves
110g butter
120g plain flour
200g Comte, grated
150g Cheddar, grated
100g Stilton, broken up into small pieces
800g cauliflower, broken into florets and blanched
200g breadcrumbs

╳ Method

Preheat the oven to 200C/gas 6. Put the blanched cauliflower in a large bowl. To make the béchamel sauce, heat the milk and bay leaves in a saucepan over a low heat.

╳ Melt the butter in another saucepan, then add the flour and whisk for about 5 minutes, until combined. Slowly ladle the hot milk into the flour mixture (discarding the bay leaves) and whisk constantly until the sauce thickens. Remove the saucepan from the heat.

╳ Stir the cheeses into the béchamel and pour over the cauliflower and carefully combine to the mixture into individual baking dishes. Sprinkle with the breadcrumbs and bake for 30–40 minutes until golden on top.

╳ Images (top to bottom)

Cauliflower Bowl

Katharina Mischer and Thomas Traxler

Wedgwood Creamware pottery cauliflower teapot decorated in underglaze oxide colours