October rain against the window. The kitchen is warm. Something good is in the oven and the whole house smells of it: butter, Cheddar, that faintly sweet note of cauliflower softening in its blanket of sauce. Cauliflower cheese is not a side dish. I know it gets treated like one, pushed to the edge of the plate next to a roast, and that's fine. But made properly, with a whole head of cauliflower and a sauce that means business, it is dinner. All of it. Maybe some bread to mop the dish. A green salad if you feel you should. That's all.

The sauce is the thing. A proper cheese sauce, made in a pan with butter and flour and milk and patience, is worth learning once and knowing forever. It takes ten minutes and the only skill involved is not walking away from the stove. Use a strong Cheddar, the kind that bites back, and a spoonful of English mustard to sharpen it. The Parmesan on top is not strictly traditional, but it blisters and crisps in the oven in a way that earns its place.

I make this when the cauliflowers at the market are good: heavy, tight-headed, still wearing their leaves. The season runs from autumn through winter, which is exactly when you want a dish like this. Something golden and bubbling, carried to the table in the dish it was baked in. There are few better feelings than putting a warm plate in front of someone on a cold night and watching them not talk for the first three mouthfuls.