Cauliflower with hard-boiled egg, black olives, and anchovy-lemon dressing

I follow Jane Grigson’s advice when I buy a cauliflower: “If the cauliflower looks back at you with a vigorous air, buy it; if it looks in need of a good night’s sleep, leave it where it is.” Although we could debate what vigorous looks like, it’s a good rule of thumb when choosing most fruit and vegetables. Except avocados, that is, which taste better when they appear to have been out on the razzle two nights in a row. It’s a rule of thumb that can also be applied to people, which in my case—sadly no razzle, just a wakeful toddler—means leaving me exactly where you found me.

Rather confusingly, Italians sometimes call winter cauliflower broccolo. Not my fruttivendolo Gianluca, though; he calls it cavolo, which usually means “cabbage,” but is also an abbreviation of cavolfiore, which literally means “cabbage flower.” To which we could reply “che cavolo?,” which, beyond meaning “what cabbage?”, is a standard response to anything flummoxing or vexing, including cauliflower etymology. Rather than looking like flowers, I’ve always thought good cauliflowers with unblemished, creamy-white whorls look like cumulus clouds, the ones that cluster in an otherwise blue sky.

This dish was a happy consequence of having made too much puntarelle dressing and a handsome cauliflower with which I was going to make cauliflower cheese until I remembered we didn’t have any milk or cheese. Che cavolo! The anchovy and lemon dressing, bold and uncompromising, brings out the tender sweetness of the cauliflower, the olives contribute a fruit-sweet, pleasingly leathery bite, and the hard-boiled eggs round it off into a pleasing and satisfying lunch.

serves 4

1 cauliflower

4 eggs

2 garlic cloves

6 anchovy fillets packed in oil

8 tablespoons extra-virgin olive oil

2 teaspoons freshly squeezed lemon juice

2 tablespoons flavorful black olives, ideally Taggiasca olives in extra-virgin olive oil

black pepper

Pull away the tough outer leaves, cut away the hard central stem, then break the cauliflower into florets. Bring a large pot of well-salted water to a boil, add the cauliflower, and cook until tender to the point of a knife. Drain and set aside.

Hard-boil the eggs. Once they are cooked, plunge them into cold water until they are cool enough to handle, then tap the shells, peel them, and slice each one in two.

Meanwhile, make the dressing. You can either use a mortar and pestle, in which case first pound the garlic, then add the anchovy fillets and pound them to a rough paste before stirring in the olive oil and lemon; or an immersion blender or small food processor, in which case add all the ingredients and pulse rather than blast to make a consistent but slightly textured dressing.

Arrange the florets in a shallow serving dish, cutting any large ones in two, scatter over the olives, arrange the hard-boiled egg halves on top, and season with black pepper before spooning over the dressing. Serve while the cauliflower and eggs are still warm.

Pinzimonio di ceci

Chickpeas with greens

My copy of The River Café Cook Book sat on my mum’s kitchen bookshelf during the first six years I was in Italy. Then, one Christmas, much to her dismay I reclaimed it. It was a long-lost favorite, and in my opinion ranks alongside Elizabeth David’s Italian Food as the English cookbook that best captures the spirit and soul of Italian ingredients and cooking. It still looks as sharp and uncompromisingly good as it did when I bought it 17 years ago, and I still want to make everything in it.

It falls open at here, at a recipe for something Rose and Ruth call pinzimonio di ceci, or chickpeas with Swiss chard. As much as I like a nice food picture, it’s not usually that which inspires me to cook. Quite the opposite, in fact. Pictures, especially if too pretty, styled, or framed with incongruous bits of this and that, leave me cool. This picture, however, unstyled and unframed, makes me eager to cook and eat. A woman in a white apron is holding a platter on which there is a pile of glistening chickpeas and chard flecked with tiny nubs of carrot, red onion, parsley, and chile, sitting in a generous, golden puddle of extra-virgin olive oil.

After pasta e ceci and hummus, this is probably my preferred way to eat chickpeas. The combination of the soft greens (which offer, as Fergus Henderson would say, “structural weave”), sweet and tender nubs of carrot and onion, heat from the chile, and depth from the wine and tomato is a full and delicious one. Wholesome but generous. It is very much a meal in itself, but I like a spoonful of ricotta beside it or an egg on top.

serves 6

about 1¼ pounds greens, preferably Swiss chard, but collard greens work well

1 red onion

2 carrots

5 tablespoons extra-virgin olive oil, plus extra to serve

salt and freshly ground black pepper

1 dried chile, crumbled

1 cup white wine

2 tablespoons tomato passata, or 1 tablespoon tomato paste

2½ cups cooked chickpeas

a generous handful of chopped flat-leaf parsley

juice of ½ lemon

Bring a large pot of well-salted water to a fast boil, add the greens, and blanch them briefly. The timing will depend on the greens; collard greens take 3–5 minutes. Taste them to check. Drain them well, and once they are cool enough to handle, chop them coarsely and set aside.

Chop the onion and carrots. Warm the oil in a heavy-bottomed sauté pan, add the onion, carrots, and a pinch of salt, and cook them slowly for 15 minutes, or until tender. Season with a little more salt and pepper and add the crumbled chile. Add the wine to the pan and allow it to bubble away until it has almost completely reduced. Add the tomato passata or paste, greens, and chickpeas, stir, and cook, stirring every couple of minutes, for 10 minutes.

Add three-quarters of the chopped parsley and the lemon juice, stir, remove from the heat, and allow to sit for 10 minutes. Transfer to a large platter or serving plate, sprinkle with the remaining parsley and a little more extra-virgin olive oil, and serve.