Skip to main content
Main

Puree of Breaded Cauliflower

A baked cauliflower puree mixed with bread crumbs, eggs, and butter, topped with a cream sauce.

From an old cookbook · modernised transcription
From a historical cookbook (Internet Archive) · 14 ingredients
Jump to recipe ↓

Why it works: Bread and butter 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 ↓

Puree of Breaded Cauliflower

Ingredients

Directions

Prepare the cauliflower

  1. Trim leaves and wash the cauliflower well.

  2. In 4 quarts of boiling water, add 1 teaspoon salt and ½ cup flour.

  3. Boil the cauliflower in this mixture for 30 minutes, then drain completely.

  4. Pass the drained cauliflower through a colander.

Prepare the crumbs

  1. Soak the bread crumbs in warm milk.

  2. Squeeze out excess milk.

  3. Pass the soaked bread crumbs through a colander.

Mix and bake

  1. In a mixing bowl, combine the cauliflower, soaked bread crumbs, 3 egg yolks, 1 tablespoon butter, ¼ teaspoon salt, and ¼ teaspoon pepper.

  2. Mix well and gently fold in the beaten egg whites.

  3. Butter a quart mold and pour the mixture into it.

  4. Place the mold in a saucepan of boiling water, ensuring the water comes within ½ inch of the top of the mold.

  5. Cook for 40 minutes.

  6. Remove from water.

  7. Cover the mold with a warm plate and invert it to serve.

Make the cream sauce

  1. For the cream sauce, melt 1 tablespoon butter and 1 tablespoon flour in a saucepan, stirring for 3 minutes.

  2. Slowly add ½ pint boiled milk while stirring until smooth.

  3. Season with ¼ teaspoon salt and ¼ teaspoon pepper, then cook slowly for 1 minute.

  4. Add ½ pint rich cream and cook for 4 minutes.

  5. Remove from heat.

  6. Stir in 1 tablespoon butter until melted.

  7. Pour over the cauliflower.

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.

  1. Bread + buttertop 7% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together27,232 recipes

    Shared aroma: delta-decalactone (sweet, creamy).

  2. Milk + buttertop 7% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together81,283 recipes

    Shared aroma: (z)-4-heptenal (biscuit, cream).

  3. Butter + creamtop 8% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together41,516 recipes

    Shared aroma: delta-dodecalactone (sweet, creamy).

  4. Cauliflower + peppertop 9% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together1,113 recipes

    Shared aroma: 4'-methylacetophenone (bitter almond).

  5. Bread + milktop 11% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together11,466 recipes

    Shared aroma: 2-undecenal (sweet).

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

What each ingredient does

Cauliflower
Forms the bulk of the casserole and gives it its main vegetable body.
Egg yolks
Enrich the mixture and help it set as it cooks.
Egg whites
Whipped and folded in, they lighten the mixture and help it rise and hold structure.
Bread crumbs
Absorb the milk and help bind the cauliflower into a sliceable body.
Cream
Adds richness and a smooth, silky texture to the sauce.
Flour
Thickens the cream sauce as it cooks with butter.

The step that matters

Folding in the egg whites. Whites hold air only when whipped and folded gently; overmixing deflates them, so the casserole turns dense instead of light.

Swap the cauliflower

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

  1. Potatofits better
  2. Asparagusfits better
  3. Leekfits better
  4. Cauliflowerthe original

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

“What each ingredient does” and “The step that matters” were written by Claude from this recipe’s own method and reviewed in samples by CompKitchen.

You might also like

Brown BreadBrown Bread461 recipesWhite BreadWhite Bread80 recipesBread OmeletteBread Omelette60 recipesOatmeal BreadOatmeal Bread51 recipes