Whey-Dashi Cauliflower
Chef Seth Blumenthal makes the most of fall flavors with a protein-powered cauliflower dish.
photos: Will Blunt
The journey to a completed dish can be a long, winding road. That was the case for Chef Seth Blumenthal, former executive chef of Miami’s Elastika.
His whey dashi-poached cauliflower entrée actually started out with pork. “We wanted to re-envision our pork set,” Blumenthal explains. He and his team started with the protein paired alongside red verjus-poached pears, kelp, and a cauliflower purée. “It just didn’t hit. We all ate it until we were sick of it. Then, one of our line cooks was like, ‘we should just use cauliflower.’” From there, Blumenthal went to work. His cauliflower dish is not only an amalgamation of his cooking philosophies, but also an homage to his culinary mentors. Blumenthal drew on Chef Brad Kilgore’s “modernist-forward” approach to techniques and flavors while introducing Chef Alain Verzeroli’s “nature- and vegetable-first” perspective. “Now, my food philosophy is: let nature take the steering wheel. And sometimes, if you want, you get to kick it up to sixth gear and drive a little bit.”
Whey-Dashi Cauliflower
While at Le Jardinier under Verzeroli, a cauliflower entrée was always a must for the fall-winter menu, so “it felt natural to put it on Elastika’s menu,” says Blumenthal. While developing the dish, Blumenthal and his team “were poaching the cauliflower with turmeric and black pepper, but turmeric didn’t really work with the poached pears and kelp.” So, he decided to make use of the whey leftover from their house-made ricotta by transforming it into a dashi. The ricotta whey, leeks, shiitake and maitake mushrooms, ginger, and lemongrass are simmered together to create an umami-fueled stock. Blumenthal then cooks the cauliflower sous vide in the dashi with salt and some butter until tender before brushing it in a black pepper butter and grilling it for service. “It had this weird funk from the fresh ricotta whey and an incredible depth of flavor," which gets amplified on the grill and transforms the cauliflower: ”it becomes the protein.”
Caramelized Cauliflower Purée
Carrying over one of the components of the original pork set, Blumenthal sautés shallots and thinly shaved cauliflower until caramelized. He then adds in more ricotta whey and toasted sunflower seeds and reduces it until au sec. The mixture is puréed with crème fraîche and goat’s milk to play off of the funkiness of the poached cauliflower. For service, the purée is seasoned with a lacto-fermented cauliflower juice to boost the vegetable’s earthiness and is plated alongside the poached and grilled cauliflower.
Poached Pears
To embrace classic fall flavors, Blumenthal turned to poached pears for body and sweetness. Asian pears are poached in a mixture of verjus, Madeira, crème de cassis, aromatics, warming spices, lime peels, and yuzu juice until soft. For service, the pears are warmed through, and Blumenthal reduces the poaching liquid before mounting the sauce with butter. The sauce is seasoned with more yuzu juice for another boost of acid and deglazed with a splash of what Blumenthal refers to as “crack jus.” The “kitchen sink recipe” is a flavor-packed jus composed of carrots, celery root, cauliflower scraps, tomatoes, mushrooms, onions, beets, and whatever scraps and aromatics are available at the time. The pears and the rich, acidic poaching liquid are artfully poured around the plate, “hitting on all the fall notes.”
Pear-Sunflower Seed Gremolata
To riff off the poached pears and add some texture to the dish, Blumenthal whips up a pear-sunflower seed gremolata. He compresses diced Asian pears in rice vinegar, yuzu juice, and shio koji. Separately, Blumenthal sweats shallots before mixing them with the pears, toasted sunflower seeds, and lemon juice. The gremolata lends “a nice acidic crunch” to the dish while the toasted sunflower seeds bring an “earthy depth.”
Kale-Kelp Braise
“I adopted the kelp from someone I look up to. [Chef] John Shields at The Loyalist has a lot of kelp on the menu. I wanted to work with it.” First, Blumenthal renders house-made pancetta. He then sautés Atlantic blade kelp and blanched kale until the kelp “puffs up and caramelizes.” The mixture is deglazed with the whey dashi, reduced, and mounted with butter. Blumenthal then finishes the greens with Tío Pepe “for more depth.” The tender kale and crispy kelp bring a slight bitterness and brininess to round out the nuanced flavors of the set.
