Cauliflower

Cauliflower is winter food in Greece and it is treated more robustly than its mild flavour might suggest. Kounoupidi kapama is the standard version, florets braised in a tomato and onion sauce with a little cinnamon or allspice until they are soft enough to break under a fork, a long way from the quick steaming the vegetable usually gets elsewhere.

It is also fried. Florets are blanched briefly, dried, floured or battered and shallow fried until golden, then served hot with skordalia, which is the same pairing given to fried courgette and to salt cod. Drying the blanched florets properly before they meet the flour is what separates a crisp result from a soggy one, since cauliflower holds water in its crevices.

Cyprus pickles it in volume, packing florets into jars with vinegar, salt and often turmeric, which turns them a strong yellow and makes them a fixture on a meze table alongside olives and cured pork. Buying a head with its outer leaves still on is worth doing: the leaves protect the curd, and they can be cooked and eaten in their own right.