Stealing from Raffaele, who stole from... Sicilian style cauliflower

The aforenamed Raffaele is one of my favorite chefs. He's the only one I refer to as "Monzu'" which is a very significant title. It's Sicilian, rather than Italian, and it sort of has the resonance, in a southern Italian kitchen, that "Sensei" used to have in Japanese. It is not to be thrown around lightly.

I met Raffaele when he tended bar at a restaurant that was a favorite. He then moved into the kitchen and, for reasons not important here, left to go to another restaurant. We tried his first place, but it just wasn't the same. The new place, however.... It's a fave. Try it. It's called "Palma" which is an odd word, meaning "roof tile." By coincidence, the restaurant is located in the very same building where Annalena's great grandmother moved to , when she left Boston because she would not agree to be una promessa sposa, and where the family line began.

One of the dishes that Raffaele always had on the menu at the first restaurant was a play on a Sicilian cauliflower dish. Sicilians eat a LOT of cauliflower. It goes into salads, it's fried, it goes into pasta sauces. Indeed, the recipe in question begins, as far as I can tell, as a pasta sauce: you use the florets of cauliflower, and boil them in the pasta water. You combine everything with pine nuts, currants, maybe some fennel, and something salty, like anchovies, or capers. You give the dish a final lashing of olive oil, and that's that.

When I have made this as a pasta dish, it is always one of the favorite things on the table. Raffaele did not serve it as pasta, however. His is a side dish, "un contorno" if you will. In his version, the cauliflower is not in the form of florets, but it is just about the size of the pine nuts and the currants. THAT SMALL. The resulting, larger surface area, allows it to pick up a lot more of the flavors of the dish, and because everything is the same size, you can get a mouthful of everything at once - not always possible with the pasta sauce version .

The dish is not on the menu of his new restaurant, but it's always there. I know because he always serves it to us. We never order from the menu with Raffaele; rather we send it back with the words "cooks choice." The food is always different, but there is always a version of lamb, and there is always his cauliflower.

I have tried for a long time to copy his cauliflower. I even asked him for the recipe. He laughed and said "come un Siciliano." And that was that.

Cazzino. (don't use that word). Well, the part of it that I couldn't figure out was getting the cauliflower that small. Cutting it didn't work. The stuff crumbled into an ill defined, ugly mess. Trying to break the pieces apart with my fingers almost drove Annalena madder than she already is.

The last time Raffaele served it to us, I paid VERY close attention to it - as much attention as one can spare after two martinis. And I recognized something that has allowed me to get VERY close.

Raffaele's cauliflower is very soft. That means he's cooked it already, before he does the combining with the other ingredients. And I began thinking: he's got uniform pieces. They're small, but they look like individual florets. What would happen if, instead of boiling it as florets, I boiled the whole thing and then took it apart.

BINGO. This gave me something that was very close to Raffaele's. Mine was less salty , because I did not use capers or anchovies, and less oily, because I did not add more oil at the end, but it WAS good. Now, I want to lay it out for you.

To make it as authentic as possible, you'll need salted capers, pine nuts and currants. The currants and capers will need soaking. I will not be able to give you precise amounts, but use half the volume of capers that you do of currants. Put them in separate bowls, and cover them with water. After ten minutes, drain the capers and do this again. You want them each to soak for about fifteen minutes.

While they're soaking, get about thee inches of salted water boiling, in a large pot. Then, add a medium sized cauliflower, whole, to the pot. Cover it, and let it cook. Every few minutes, check the softness of the center with a knife. It should be VERY soft: knife tender, so to speak.

While the cauliflower cooks, toast the same volume of pine nuts as you have currants, in a tablespoon of olive oil until they just begin to smell toasty. Put them, and the oil, in a bowl, with the drained currants, and the drained capers. Meanwhile, let the cauliflower cool down and then break it apart. You'll see: it falls apart like little tiny pieces of a stone. This is what you want, and you'll have lots of it. You won't be able to do that with the stems, only the florets. Save the stems for soup, if you like.

Now, get the pan where you toasted the pine nuts, and add two-three tablespoons of olive oil and get it warm. Toss everything together in the oil, for a couple of minutes, and you are really done. If you like, when you dump the stuff out of the pan, you can add some more olive oil.

You can use this as a pasta sauce, but for my money, it is the best thing in the world to serve alongside some simple roast lamb, just the way Raffaele does.

Monzu'. Yup, that's what he is.