A Healthier Way to Serve Cauliflower

Cauliflower. A bland, flabby, insipid vegetable, redolent of disappointingly (but unsurprisingly) awful school dinners. Always cooked to the point of absolute collapse, it simply tastes like gone-bad cabbage (and leaves a lingeringly whiffy smell in the kitchen for hours too).
The only way you could get me to eat cauliflower was in one of two recipes:
1) Smothered (read disguised) in a cheese sauce and baked in the oven. Yes, the archetypal Cauliflower Cheese or
2) Pureed to within an inch of it's life and served as soup.
One masks its delicate flavour, the other enhances it, both deliciously.
However, since last night, all this has changed.
I had bought a cauliflower a couple of weeks ago and it still looked and felt and smelt not too bad (which is testament to the longevity of the cauliflower - more so than a post-apocalyptic cockroach). I had planned on making soup with it as part of my five day soup campaign but that fell by the wayside. Instead, it lingered in the fridge, rolling out every time I opened the door. Something had to be done.
Whilst looking for ways to utilise the beetroot, I came across this recipe in Lindsay Bareham's The Fish Store: Deep Fried Cauliflower with Mustard Sauce. Hmm, deep fried? Sounds good!
I am now a deep frying fanatic. Monday we deep fried prawns in Fish-Fry, I perfected Souffle Beignets and now the Cauliflower.
You can buy all sorts of pre-prepared breadcrumbs or coating but the best is your own freshly blitzed crumbs. The tedium of the conveyor belt-type process: flour - egg - crumbs - oil, is quickly overcome by the reward of seeing your deep fried food of choice turning golden brown and crisp, just waiting to be plunged into a creamy or spicy dip.
These are really easy to make, and would make a great appetizer for a party because they stay warm for ages (and taste good cold too). Plus, because the fried stuff on the outside, is filled with healthy vegetable stuff on the inside, they're good for you too, right? Right??
Note: One cauliflower makes quite a lot of these golden morsels, but it depends on the size floret. I had to ask Paul what size a floret was and apparently it varies. To make things more complicated there isn't even a kitchen implement that gauges the size of the floret! From a big bough of the cauliflower (I like to think of them as anaemic trees) to discarded branch size, apparently a floret is down to personal choice. Just to be on the safe side, I did a variety.
This is my entry for Weekend Herb Blogging, hosted this month by the matriarch of the event, Kalyn at Kalyns Kitchen!
DEEP FRIED CAULIFLOWER WITH MUSTARD DIP Serves 2 greedy pigs or up to 6 non-greedy people!
Ingredients:
1 Cauliflower, clean and cut into florets of various sizes
4 slices of stale Bread (I used white, but I think brown would be just as good too), turned into breadcrumbs (we used our food processor but a blender works too)
2 Large Eggs Beaten
30g Flour
Oil for Frying. We use sunflower oil.
METHOD:
Heat a large pan of vegetable oil to frying temperature. You will be deep frying the cauliflower.
Bring a pan of salted water to the boil. Throw in the Cauliflower Florets and boil for two minutes. Drain well.
In three separate bowls place the flour, egg and the breadcrumbs.
Put the florets, a few at a time, into the flour, then the egg, the the breadcrumbs, ensuring that they are thoroughly coated.
Drop them into the hot oil. They will start to sizzle immediately if the heat is hot enough.
Whilst the first batch is frying, you can start on preparing the second.
Once they are golden brown, remove from the oil and drain on kitchen paper.
Repeat process until the Cauliflower (or breadcrumbs) are used up.
Serve alongside the dip.

For the Dip:
Ingredients:
4 Tablespoons Mayonnaise
1 Tablespoon Dijon Mustard
Some Lemon Juice
Salt and Pepper
METHOD:
Whisk the Mayo and Mustard together. Squeeze over some lemon juice and season to taste.