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Cauliflower

Cauliflower boiled in vinegar and water, then cooked with butter, salt, and pepper.

From an old cookbook · modernised transcription
From a historical cookbook (Internet Archive) · 6 ingredients
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Why it works: Cauliflower and pepper are a kitchen classic. They rank in the top 9% of all ingredient pairs, and cooks put them together in 1,113 recipes. Both carry 4'-methylacetophenone, which smells bitter almond. The science ↓

Cauliflower

Ingredients

Directions

Prepare

  1. Remove the poor leaves from the cauliflower.

  2. Soak the cauliflower in vinegar and water for 15 minutes.

  3. Cut out the stalk and separate the leaves.

  4. Scrape the cauliflower and lay it in cold water.

  5. Drain the cauliflower and pour cold water over it.

Cook and serve

  1. Heat the cauliflower with butter, coarse sea salt, and pepper for 1 to 2 hours.

  2. Serve plain or with white sauce and crumbs.

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

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

  2. Cauliflower + vinegartop 13% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together888 recipes

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

  3. Vinegar + peppertop 14% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together27,814 recipes

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

  4. Butter + peppertop 21% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together85,593 recipes

    Shared aroma: trans-2-nonenal (cardboard, fatty).

  5. Cauliflower + buttertop 23% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together823 recipes

    Shared aroma: 2,3-pentanedione (butter, sweet).

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, becoming tender as it cooks.
Vinegar
Added to the soaking water, where it helps loosen dirt and small insects from the florets.
Butter
Adds richness and fat, carrying flavour through the cooked cauliflower.

Swap the cauliflower

How well each one fits the dish's main ingredients (vinegar, butter, pepper):

  1. Capsicumfits better
  2. Mustardfits better
  3. Cabbagefits about as well
  4. Cauliflowerthe original

Fit is the average pairing score against vinegar, butter, 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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