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Creamed Cauliflower

A cauliflower dish topped with a white sauce made from butter, flour, scalded milk, onion, salt, pepper, and baking soda.

From an old cookbook · modernised transcription
From a historical cookbook (Internet Archive) · 9 ingredients
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Creamed Cauliflower

Why it works: Butter and milk are a kitchen classic. They rank in the top 7% of all ingredient pairs, and cooks put them together in 81,283 recipes. Both carry (z)-4-heptenal, which smells biscuit, cream. The science ↓

Creamed Cauliflower

Ingredients

Directions

Prepare the cauliflower

  1. Remove leaves and cut off stalks of the cauliflower.

  2. Soak the cauliflower head in cold water for 30 minutes.

  3. Cook the cauliflower head in a large pot of boiling salted water with baking soda until tender.

  4. Drain and separate the florets, then arrange them in a serving dish.

Make the white sauce

  1. In a saucepan, melt the butter and add the flour, stirring constantly.

  2. Gradually pour in the scalded milk infused with the onion (remove the onion after scalding).

  3. Bring the sauce to a boil, then add salt and pepper.

Serve

  1. Pour the white sauce over the cauliflower before serving.

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.

Photo for illustrative purposes only · Contact us to use it

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. Butter + milktop 7% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together81,283 recipes

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

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

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

  3. Cauliflower + oniontop 10% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together935 recipes

    Shared aroma: decanal (soap, orange peel).

  4. Onion + peppertop 11% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together68,474 recipes

    Shared aroma: 2-isopropyl-3-methoxypyrazine (earthy, pea).

  5. Cauliflower + flourtop 12% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together569 recipes

    Shared aroma: isobutyraldehyde (malty, green).

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

What each ingredient does

Cauliflower
Forms the main body of the dish and is softened by boiling until tender.
Baking soda
Raises the water's alkalinity, helping the cauliflower soften and keep a bright color.
Butter
Adds richness and fat, and forms the base of the roux with the flour.
Flour
Thickens the milk into a smooth white sauce when cooked with the melted butter.
Scalded milk
Forms the liquid of the sauce, giving it a creamy texture and mild sweetness.

The step that matters

Gradually pour in the scalded milk. Adding the milk slowly while stirring keeps the flour evenly dispersed, so the sauce becomes smooth rather than lumpy.

Swap the onion

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

  1. Asparagusfits better
  2. Shallotfits better
  3. Capsicumfits better
  4. Onionthe original

Fit is the average pairing score against cauliflower, sauce, butter, flour, milk, pepper. 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.

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