169/18 – Cauliflower Cheese:
Next up from Root and Leaf by Rich Harris was cauliflower cheese.
Root & Leaf: Big, bold vegetarian food
The Meat:
My wife was planning on cooking a roast chicken for dinner so I added that to the cook!
A whole chicken from Gartmorn Farm – 2.5kg for £12.50. I spatchcocked it.
The Prep:
Bit random but I found some Korean BBQ rub in the cupboard from this cook:
Into the spice shaker and applied all over the chicken.
Black Bomber from Snowdonia Cheese – I have been enjoying the other cheeses they sent to me and a lot of people said this one was their favourite.
1 cauliflower.
Opened up a bit and rubbed with rapeseed oil then seasoned with salt.
A while back London Log Co sent me a bag of Holm Oak, I have been wanting to cook with it for ages and this was the first time I fired it up. It lit easily, smelt great, burnt well and was easy to control. More on this as I cook more with it!
The charcoal went into the Kamado Joe Big Joe and was lit with two flamers, left alone for half an hour and it was settled at 220c. Deflector plates in place and two lumps of oak dropped in.
The Cook:
Chicken on with a pan underneath to protect the deflector plates from the juices dripping down. Meater probe in and set to 67c – connected direct to my phone which was left in the BBQ Hut.
After about ten minutes I put the cauliflower in. The picture below is how it looked an hour in.
So much space on the Big Joe!
Enough for a roasting tray as well!
After 90 minutes the chicken was hitting 70c in all places so I took it out to rest and wrapped it in foil. Not the best photo!
The cauliflower was ready for the cheese sauce – milk, double cream, onion, peppercorns, bay leaf, nutmeg, butter, flour and the Snowdonia Cheese Black Bomber.
Cheese sauce on top and grated Parmesan to finish.
The roast potatoes came out well!
As did the cauliflower cheese, the melted cheese looked awesome.
Glorious, just glorious!
SUMMARY:
The cauliflower cheese was fantastic, so tasty! Forget about the cauliflower cheese we ate as kids and give this a go it was a glorious, gloopy cheese fest! The black bomber was indeed a very tasty cheese, good choice for this dish and the smoke from the oak just made it even better.
Korean BBQ chicken might have been an odd one to pair with this but it tasted great! The roast potatoes were good also. Love how much you can cook at once on the Big Joe, it’s such a beast.
Overall – Top dish and one I will be cooking more in future.
| Cook Difficulty: | 2/5 |
| Cook Duration: | Medium: 3/5 |
| Cook Equipment: | Kamado Joe Big Joe |
| Cook Method: | Indirect |
| Charcoal: | London Log Co – Holm Oak |
| Smoking Wood: | Oak |
| Cook temperature: | 220c |
| Cook time: | 90 minutes |
| Internal temperature: | Chicken 70c ish |
| Notes: | No major changes, such a great meal. |
This recipe is from Root and Leaf by Rich Harris:
Root & Leaf: Big, bold vegetarian food
To find out a bit more about this great book have a read of this blog post:
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