Cheesy Romanesco & Kale Bake With Miso, Butterbean and Roasted Garlic Sauce
Is it a cauliflower? Is it a broccoli? Nope, it’s a Romanesco! This beautiful, cosy recipe is a spin on cauliflower cheese. Romanesco sits somewhere in between a cauliflower and a broccoli (sometimes called a Roman Cauliflower, sometimes a Romanesco Broccoli!) and works so well with creamy cheesy flavours. This is a perfect side dish for a festive meal or roast dinner, but also works really well as a main, perhaps with a side salad, since it’s nutrient dense and full of protein.
I do love a traditional cauliflower cheese, but this recipe is a lovely spin on what is usually a fairly beige dish! If you wanted to go for something in between, you could swap the Romanesco for a regular snowy white cauliflower and you would end up with something much closer to a traditional cauliflower cheese. This recipe is my gift to you, so do with it as you please.
What is a Romanesco I hear your cry? Well, it’s part of the brassica family (cabbage, brussels sprouts, broccoli, cauliflower, kohlrabi, kale….) and it is a true BEAUTY of a veg. Hailing from Rome in around the 15th-16th century, the Romanesco (broccolo romanesco or cavolo romanesco to Italians) is arguably even tastier than its broccoli and cauliflower sisters. Plus, it’s an edible example of the exquisite Fibonacci fractal! Each Romanesco is made up of smaller florets that demonstrate the Fibonacci spiral to perfection. These are made up of smaller spirals and so on and so on until you get to the tiniest florets. If at any point you forget how truly wonderful nature is, take a moment with a Romanesco.
I love throwing together cheesy sauces and there are so many ways to do it without using actual cheese. I think the most important thing to remember when you’re playing around with vegan cheese sauces is to not get too hung up about trying to recreate the exact flavour of cheese. Go for the same feel. The same cosiness. Make something that tastes amazing and works in place of a “regular” cheese sauce. That way you allow yourself to branch out into different flavours and textures.
I’ve used butterbeans in this recipe because I wanted to play with new ways of thickening my sauce and making it creamy without having to use too much in the way of nuts and fat. Also, I love beans and I often have them on hand. Blending them into a sauce is a great way of sneaking in lots of fibre, protein and an array of vitamins and minerals. I have used some cashews in this sauce because I think they give a lovely creaminess, but most of the texture comes from the butter beans, which are much less heavy. If you’re planning to have this as a side at your festive dinner table, then you don’t want to end up getting so full you can’t fit in your nut roast. Amiright?
There are a few stages to this recipe, but it’s not particularly complicated (she says):
First we chuck our beans and garlic cloves into the oven for a bit.
Next, we blanch our Romanesco and greens.
Then, we combine our sauce ingredients before heading over to the hob to thicken.
The next step is to whiz up the ingredients for the garlic crumb topping.
Finally, we pop it all in the oven to bubble away.
This recipe makes enough sauce for a big Romanesco and a generous handful of greens in a standard sized casserole dish. If you have a particularly small Romanesco, you may want to half the sauce recipe, or just save the leftovers and have them with pasta. Two recipes for the price of one there, my friends!
When it comes to the Romanesco, there’s very little waste here. The stem and leaves are all hidden in this lovely dish. Only the most fibrous parts of the veg make it to the compost. There’s no need to throw away the less commonly used parts of any brassica veg, or generally most fruits or vegetables. I really recommend googling any part of a fruit or vegetable that you tend to discard. You may be surprised to find it’s actually edible and more to the point, actually delicious and nutritious! (Check out this delicious banana peel thoran recipe made by Hannah Walker for Made In Hackney)
I learned a hot tip for removing the extremely fibrous part of celery when I was in Italy and now apply the same process to other stems or leaves to avoid undigestible chewy bits. I recommend following these steps for your cauliflower leaves. All you do is grab your leaf and snap the thick stem in half. It will resist breaking where there are very tough fibres. So you’ll have two halves held together by fibrous threads. Holding the two halves in each hand, you essentially peel the fibres out of one half by pulling the other half down, until the two halves separate. One of the halves will now have a load of stringy fibres attached. Grab the top of the fibres and peel them off. Repeat this a few times, snapping and peeling. For the thick stem of the romanesco (or any brassica), I tend to carefully cut away just the tough outer layer and then dice up the rest. It’s lovely and sweet.
This dish gets a lot of its “umami” or punchy savoury flavour from miso paste. I have used Clearspring white miso which is made from fermented soya beans and rice and has a lovely light and delicate flavour. It works really well in desserts too! If you are using a different miso such a brown rice miso, I recommend halving the quantity as the flavour will be a more powerful.
Ingredients
Veg
1 large romanesco (or sub cauliflower or broccoli)
1 large handful of leaves of choice, such as kale or spinach
Sauce
1 can cooked butterbeans
3-4 regular garlic cloves
3 cups plant milk (I use oat milk)
1/2 cup cashews (soaked for 4hrs)
2 tablespoons white miso
3 tablespoons nutritional yeast
1/2 teaspoon onion granules
1 teaspoon garlic granules
1 teaspoon smoked paprika
Pinch turmeric (optional - just for colour)
1 teaspoon maple syrup
1 tablespoon tomato puree
1-2 teaspoons apple cider vinegar
juice of half a medium sized lemon
1 teaspoon tamari
3 1/2 tablespoons tapioca starch
2 tablespoons vegan butter such as Naturli or other flavourless oil. You can omit this ingredient but it will affect the texture.
Garlic and herb topping
1/2 slice of wholemeal bread
1 tablespoon pumpkin /sunflower seeds
1/2 teaspoon thyme
1/2 teaspoon sage
2 teaspoons nutritional yeast
1/4 teaspoon salt
1/2 teaspoon olive/coconut oil (can omit but the crumbs will be less crunch)
Method
Preheat oven to 180°C/160°c Fan/356°F.
Drain your beans (keep the liquid for another time - it makes a great egg substitute!) and place on a baking tray with your garlic cloves. Roast for 15-20 minutes until the garlic is soft and gooey and the beans have all burst out of their skins.
Prepare your Romanesco. Pull off the leaves and only discard any that are very old and tough or badly discoloured. As described above, I recommend pulling out the very fibrous parts of leaf stalks by snapping them in half and peeling off the tough fibres. You can chop the leaves to whatever size you prefer.
Chop the stem as close to the florets as you can without cutting into them, so they start to naturally break apart. Carefully pull the rest of the florets apart by hand.
Carefully remove the outer layer of the stalk with a sharp knife until you start to see the texture change underneath, then slice or dice the stalk as you wish.
I like to leave my kale/spinach leaves whole but you can chop them if you wish. Alternatively, you could separate the spine from the leaf and chop that separately. Just don’t chuck any of it, it’s all yummy!
Bring a large pan of water to the boil and then throw in your Romanesco (all parts except any very small leaves) for 5 minutes. In the final minute add your greens and any small leaves you kept back.
Your Romanesco should be cooked enough for a fork to easily go through it but still quite firm. Drain and set aside.
Drain your soaked cashews and rinse them well.
Add the cashews, along with your roasted beans and garlic (not the garlic skin - just squeeze the insides out) to a blender. Then add all of the other sauce ingredients listed, apart from the vegan butter/oil.
Blend until completely smooth and creamy. Stop to scrape down the sides a few times.
Transfer the sauce to a pan and simmer over a medium heat for around 10 minutes, stirring regularly. At this point, the tapioca starch should be cooked (if it’s not, the sauce will taste a bit powdery and bitter) and the sauce lovely and thick. Give it a try and season with salt if you feel it is necessary.
To make your garlic herb crumb to go on top, simply add all of the ingredients to a small food processor or nutribullet and pulse a few times until you have a nice crumb consistency.
Transfer your veggies to a casserole or pie dish and pour over the sauce until the veg is completely covered. Then sprinkle over your crumb topping and bake in the oven for around 20 minutes until the top is starting to brown.