Keeping this posted so I can find it later.
Cauliflower Potato Chowder
Mains
Ingredients:
Pot # 1
1/2 cup olive oil
3 cups onions, rough chop
9 cloves garlic, crushed and peeled
1/8 tsp dry rosemary, crushed
1/4 tsp dry thyme
1/2 tsp ground black pepper
1/2 lb rutabaga, peeled and diced (optional; replace with more potato if needed)
1 lb potatoes, peeled and diced
Stems of the califlower
2 cups almond milk
1/2 cup nutritional yeast
Salt, to taste
Pot # 2
1 1/4 lbs potatoes, peeled and diced
1 1/4 lb head cauliflower, stem (but save that for pot #1) and leaves removed (discard those), cut into florets
6 cups water, RESERVED
Directions:
WARNING: Don't dump anything in the pot unless it's specified. This is not a dump everything into one pot and call it a night. There's a specific process. Read through carefully.
1. In a 2 gallon pot (DO NOT ADD OIL YET), add the onions and garlic, and set over medium high heat. We will call this pot # 1. While this comes up to heat, start peeling and chopping the potatoes, rutabaga, and cauliflower. It's going to take around 10 minutes or so for the pot to come up to heat, and for the onions and garlic to begin to sizzle. Once you hear the onions and garlic begin to make noise in the pot, stir everything around so that the liquid starts to pull out from your veggies. Add olive oil only when the water has started to leech out and evaporate quickly. This will take anywhere between 10 and 20 minutes, depending on how "wet" your onions are. Why wait to add oil? Because if you add the olive oil to the pot first, the evaporating water from your vegetables is going to carry your expensive olive oil with it, and into the air and all over your cabinets. You spent all this money on olive oil. Make sure it stays in the pot. Anyway. Once your onions and garlic make a sizzling noise, add the olive oil to the pot, and stir everything around to combine. Add the rosemary, thyme, and black pepper at this point, so that they have a chance to bloom in the oil + aromatics.
2. Let onions/garlic/spices cook for about 10 more minutes over medium heat until they are fragrant, and the onions have begun to soften. If you hear the onions sizzling very quickly (bubbles rapidly rising from the bottom of the pot and breaking on the surface of the oil, making lots of excited sounding noises), turn down the heat lower until you hear a more gentle sizzling sound. You want to smell the garlic and onion and herbs/spices along with the smell of olive oil. Once the spices and onions/garlic have had a chance to cook for a few minutes to take off that raw edge to the flavour, drop the heat to as low as it'll go, and put the lid on the pot. Let this simmer away over the lowest heat for 30 minutes.
3. While the oil and onions/garlic/spices are cooking away slowly, finish preparing the rutabaga, potatoes, and cauliflower. Not all of the potatoes are going into the same pot. About half is going to pot #1, and the other half is going to pot # 2. Why? Because you need some potatoes to have the taste of being sautéed in oil (pot #1) and some of it to be cooked only in salted water (pot #2). It does make a difference, so make sure that you don't just throw all your potatoes into one pot. You may want to use a vegetable chopper to get the potatoes and rutabaga the same size cubes.
4. Once your potatoes and rutabaga are chopped up, give them a good rinse under cold water, to remove any excess starch or leftover dirt from the peeling process. Same with the cauliflower. Give it a good rinse under running water after you've made it into florets.
5. Once the onions and garlic are softened completely with the lid on, remove the lid and add: ALL of the rutabaga, and 1 lb of the peeled and diced potatoes. If you have any cauliflower stems that are from the central branch of the cauliflower, add it to pot #1. Over medium low heat, gently stir the potatoes, rutabaga, and any cauliflower stems in the oil. Put on the lid, and let it cook away for 5 minutes before stirring again. You want to keep stirring and covering the lid to allow it to cook in 5-minute increments until the potatoes get very very lightly browned on the edges. You don't need them crispy, but just lightly browned.
6. Meanwhile add the remaining potatoes (about 1 1/4 lbs) to pot #2 with the 6 cups of cold water. You will not be throwing this water out, because it will have the leftover starch and seasoning that you add to it. Generously salt the water (not quite as salty as pasta water, but you do want to taste some salt in there) and bring up to highest heat. Once the water reaches a rolling boil, drop down the heat to low, and allow to simmer for 12 minutes. Check a potato. It should be tender but not mushy. You want it to be cooked through but still firm. If the potatoes are still raw in the middle, let it cook an additional 5 minutes, and check again. Keep cooking until the potatoes are just cooked through. Add the cauliflower florets, and simmer an additional 5 minutes. At the end of the 5 minutes the cauliflower should be barely cooked and still kind of crunchy. This is a good thing. Strain out the water into a bowl, and SAVE THE WATER.
7. Once pot # 1 has the potatoes lightly browned, add the 2 cups almond milk, and about 3 cups of the water from pot # 2. Bring up to a full rushing boil, and let it continue to boil for about 8 minutes. Drop the heat to low, and let it simmer away for another 15 minutes until the rutabaga and potatoes are soft. If it's not soft at the end of the cooking time, keep adding more simmer time until it's all soft.
8. In a blender, combine the contents of pot #1 with another 1 cup of water, and blend until smooth. My blender holds about 64 oz of liquid, so I was able to do this in like 2 batches. Your mileage may vary. Using a proper blender (and not a stick blender) is important, because you want the olive oil to combine with the starch in the potatoes and form a creamy liquid. It won't work unless everything is moving at high speed. Add the ground soup back to pot # 1, and bring up to heat. Dump in the cauliflower and cooked potatoes from pot #2. Add nutritional yeast, and adjust salt to taste. Bring up to a boil, and let it all cook together for about 5 minutes. This final cooking step is important for all the vegetables to get combined nicely together.
