Serves 4-6

This Cauliflower Cheese recipe goes well with our Sunday Roast Chicken and can be conveniently be cooked in the oven at the same time as the chicken or you can pop it into the hot oven while the chicken is resting.

Ingredients:

–1 large cauliflower, cut into florets
–500ml whole milk
–2 bay leaves
–1 mace blade
–a few peppercorns
–30g butter
–30g plain flour
–½ tsp mustard powder
–pinch of cayenne
–100g Cheddar or Gruyère, grated
–sea salt and white pepper

Method:

1. Bring a large saucepan of water to the boil and add salt.
2. Add the cauliflower and cook it for 4 minutes until it’s tender when pierced with a knife. Drain the cauliflower thoroughly and put it in an ovenproof dish.
3. Pour the milk into a saucepan and add the bay leaves, mace and peppercorns.
4. Place the pan over the heat and bring the milk almost to the boil. Remove the pan from the heat and leave the milk to infuse for a while, or at least until you’ve made the roux.
5. Melt the butter in another pan. Add the flour and stir in the mustard powder and cayenne.
6. When you have a smooth roux, keep stirring for a minute or so to cook the flour a little.
7. Strain the milk into a jug and add it to the roux, very gradually to start with and making sure you stir it to a smooth paste with each addition.
8. When the texture is like a liquid sauce, you can add the milk in larger quantities, continuing to stir constantly until it is all incorporated.
9. Add 75g of the cheese and stir until it has melted.
10.Check for seasoning and add salt and pepper, preferably white, if necessary.
11.Pour the sauce over the cauliflower and sprinkle the rest of the cheese on top.
12.Put the dish in the oven and bake for about 30 minutes until the top is brown and bubbling. Serve with the roast chicken.

In this BBC TV tie-in book, the Hairy Bikers present recipes from around the world that celebrate the most popular and versatile of ingredients: chicken & eggs!

Following on from their many best-selling books, including THE HAIRY BIKERS’ MEAT FEASTS and THE HAIRY BIKERS’ PERFECT PIES, The Hairy Bikers return with another heart-warming and down-to-earth cookery book, perfect for all the family.

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Recipes from THE HAIRY BIKERS’ CHICKEN & EGG by Si King and Dave Myers is published by Orion in hardback at £22, eBook £12.99.
Photography by Andrew Hayes-Watkins