I’ve recently discovered a great new salad, which I call caul slaw. As the name suggests, it’s like coleslaw, except made with cauliflower instead of cabbage. And it’s a lot better.
The basic recipe is just finely-chopped cauliflower and mayo. Really, that’s all you need. But of course, there are endless embellishments possible. The batch I was eating today, I also added bacon, shredded cheddar, and dry-roasted peanuts, plus a few spices (celery seed, paprika, and mustard). I expect peas would probably also work. Or whatever else you feel like.
It’s simple to make, tasty, and nutritious. What’s not to like?
It’s all good. They’re all brassica vegetables (that is, cabbage, cauliflower, broccoli, etc.), so they all should substitute pretty well for each other or be used in combination with each other.
As a kid we called it brains, and I introduced that to my kids as well. Much better than stuffed peppers (or was it cabbage?) referred to as Monkey Brains in a Calvin & Hobbes strip.
Anyhoo… I tried some, not bad, I prefer traditional slaw, but cauliflower to me is a bland type vegetable useful to be highly seasoned as a flavor transfer medium, similar to tofu in that regard. I could see it as part of mixed vegetable slaw that could be more interesting than just cabbage and the stray bit of carrot in typical slaw. I include thin sliced bell pepper in cabbage slaw, a lot of people have loved it, but I think it mostly improves the appearance and is hidden by the cabbage flavor.
OK, just to be absolutely clear: I’m using the vegetable, not the natal membrane (which I had never heard of before this thread).
And while cauliflower doesn’t have a very strong flavor, and is very effective at conveying other flavors due to its high surface area, it does have a distinctive flavor of its own. And for that matter, the same could be said of (fresh) cabbage (old cabbage, of course, does develop a very strong flavor with time, which is usually regarded as unpleasant).