Makes: 4 servings
Time: About 30 minutes
You can speed the cooking of cauliflower by cutting it up before cooking, but because it crumbles easily, you’ll lose some in the process. It’s best to allow enough time to cook the head whole. Serve hot cauliflower with butter, olive oil, and/or lemon juice; garnish with parsley.
Put the cauliflower in a steamer above an inch or 2 of salted water. Cover and cook over steadily bubbling water until it is just tender enough to be pierced to the core with a thin-bladed knife — no longer. Because it’s large, the cauliflower will retain quite a bit of heat after cooking, so it should still be slightly chewy when you remove it from the steamer. Total cooking time will be 12 to 25 minutes, depending on the size of the head.