Orange Cauliflower ???

[Sherri]

My local, independent market had Orange Cauliflower today and I bought a head, purely out of curiosity. It looks exactly the same as "regular" white cauliflower except that it is the color of clementines. The manager told me that it was a cross of several other varieties of cauliflower which I find puzzling and beside the point.

Anybody ever tasted this? cooked this? died from eating this?

I'm up for any and all suggestions. Would love to hear from hounds who've had experience with this.

[Sherri]

W-O-W!
My thanks to all who responded so quickly.

Leaving the question of increased nutrients aside, this veg piqued my interest solely because of the color. It was 59 cents well spent! (sorry, ChefBoyAreMe) I divided the head in half and made a sort-of cauliflower pie w/ sharp cheddar with one half and roasted carrots, sweet potatoes & the cauli with the other half. You'all are dead-on -- tastes like cauliflower!

I was slightly leery but I'll ante up some more money today and continue experimenting thanks to all your helpful answers. Hurrah!

[ChefBoyAreMe]

It's good..same as regular cauliflower. you do pay a bit of a premium for it, at least by me.

I usually buy it when I want to roast some, and I'll mix 2 or 3 colors (green and purple also available). Try cutting it up into 1 inch pieces, and tossing it with finely mashed garlic (or grated through a fine microplane), salt pepper, EV olive oil, and a generous sprinkle of cumin. Roast it in a 400-450 degree over for about 10 minutes, or until the tips bging to brown a bit.

[tartiflette]

As previously mentioned, the orange cauli tastes just like the white. I've seen it billed as being higher in beta-carotene and anti-oxidants than the white (I guess that whole "the brighter the colour, the better the veggie is for you" concept?)

I just get a kick out of the colour. :)

[rworange]

Tastes like white, but looks prettier on the plate. Sometimes called gold cauliflower.

I've had white,orange, green & purple cauliflower. All tastes the same.

If special steps were not taken, all cauliflower would be green.

The purple cauliflower has the health advantage as any blue/purple veggie like blueberries.

More about cauliflower from Chow ingrediants:
http://www.chow.com/ingredients/120

BTW, the above link says cauliflower has an affitinity with ginger ... which never occured to me. I recenlty made cauliflower (green and gold) sauteed with fresh ginger and garlic. It was wonderful.

That ingrediants section is my absolute favorite part of Chow.

[purple goddess]

It's the purple that makes it better for ya ;)

Agree with all the above.. tastes the same, looks different, although it will loose some of its brightness when cooked.

My purple cauli always goes a little grey.

[Gio]

Not to derail this thread but - where exactly is the Ingredients section of Chow? While I did click on the link, it only brought me to the Cauliflower explanation. I'd like to see the entire board. MTIA!!

[rworange]

The only way to get to ingrediants is through search.
http://www.chowhound.com/topics/428221

Another nice thing about ingrediants is that to the right of the page is a list of Chow recipes that use that ingrediant.

[Louise]

I would too, but there isn't any way to look at the index. I posted this on the 'site questions' board and that's about as much info as I got.

[julesrules]

This is a great recipe for ginger cauliflower soup. Doesn't need the heavy cream (I've done milk, soy milk and nothing over the years and all were good) but of course is delicious with it.
http://www.recipesource.com/ethnic/as...

[zipper]

Here we can buy white,orange & purple cauliflower. The produce dept guy sez the coloured cauliflower is the same as white but was developed to encourage kids to eat it. Sounds good to me but my spouse probably wouldn't touch the coloured stuff.(won't try anything different)
Have you heard of Broccoflower--it's kind of a cross between broccoli & cauliflower,.

[Amanita]

Yes, I think broccoflower is appearing on French market stands as Choux Romanesco :
http://images.google.fr/images?hl=fr&...

Is that it?

[happybellynh]

The Romanesco is a different vegetable, actually. The Broccoflower looks just like cauliflower (with the rounded florets), but is the same color as the Romanesco.

[valerie]

I buy the broccoflower and while it tastes relatively the same when it's raw, I do think it has a slightly different taste when roasted. I love roasted cauliflower, although it really doesn't have *that* much flavor, and I think that the broccoflower actually has some good flavor. I roast the 2 of them along with baby carrots, red onions and brussels sprouts and it makes a nice colorful plate of vegetables.

[AMFM]

we love it too. tastes the same. and people who are really anti- engineered food have no trouble with this. and it is a great way to get kids even more into veggies. my daughter (who's 4 1/2) thinks colored cauliflower is the best!

[marthadumptruck]

I've had the orange and purple cauliflower. I didn't really taste a difference between the two nor did I note much of difference in taste from white cauliflower.

We love it roasted!

[thenurse]

Ditto - love it for the colour, taste is pretty much the same.