Name: Cauliflower Browned
Ingredients: 1¼ pounds cauliflower; ½ pint milk; 2 tablespoons flour; 2 teaspoons coarse sea salt; 1 teaspoon white pepper; 2 ounces butter; grated bread

Why it works: Butter and bread are a kitchen classic. They rank in the top 7% of all ingredient pairs, and cooks put them together in 27,232 recipes. Both carry delta-decalactone, which smells sweet, creamy. The science ↓

Cauliflower Browned

Ingredients

Directions

The book gives no oven temperature. The 400°F (200°C) in the steps was added when the recipe was transcribed, as a starting point.

Boil the cauliflower until very tender, then drain well and cut into small pieces.
Layer the cauliflower with finely chopped egg and the dressing made from milk thickened with flour over boiling water.
Season the dressing with salt, white pepper, and butter.
Top with grated bread, dot with small bits of butter, and bake in a 400°F (200°C) oven until heated through and browned.
Serve in the dish it was baked in.

Recipe from a historical cookbook (Internet Archive).

Transcribed from a scanned cookbook and modernised for today's kitchens. Where the book gave no heat or time, or said "a moderate oven", the temperatures and times here may be modern equivalents rather than the book's own figures.

Explore the science

The flavor team

The pairs that carry this dish. Each one is judged two ways: how much their aromas overlap, and how often cooks already put them together.

Butter + breadtop 7% of all pairs

Smell alikemoderate

Cooked together27,232 recipes

Shared aroma: delta-decalactone (sweet, creamy).
Milk + buttertop 7% of all pairs

Smell alikemoderate

Cooked together81,283 recipes

Shared aroma: (z)-4-heptenal (biscuit, cream).
Milk + breadtop 11% of all pairs

Smell alikemoderate

Cooked together11,466 recipes

Shared aroma: 2-undecenal (sweet).
Cauliflower + flourtop 12% of all pairs

Smell alikemoderate

Cooked together569 recipes

Shared aroma: isobutyraldehyde (malty, green).
Flour + buttertop 12% of all pairs

Smell alikelow

Cooked together124,287 recipes

Shared aroma: isobutyraldehyde (malty, green).

Flour and butter barely smell alike, yet cooks put them together in 124,287 recipes: they work on texture and structure more than aroma.

Ranks compare each pair with 20,000 random ingredient pairs on CompKitchen. How we score pairs

Swap the white pepper

How well each one fits the dish's main ingredients (cauliflower, milk, flour, butter, bread):

Cinnamonfits better
Capersfits better
Nutmegfits better
White pepperthe original

Fit is the average pairing score against cauliflower, milk, flour, butter, bread. Candidates are from the same food group and used in at least 100 recipes.