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Cauliflower a LA Magnonnaise, with Jelly

A dish of boiled cauliflower coated in mayonnaise and served with aspic jelly croutons.

From an old cookbook · modernised transcription
From a historical cookbook (Internet Archive) · 9 ingredients
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Why it works: Cauliflower and vinegar work together. They rank in the top 13% of all ingredient pairs, and cooks put them together in 888 recipes. Both carry 4'-methylacetophenone, which smells bitter almond. The science ↓

Cauliflower a LA Magnonnaise, with Jelly

Ingredients

Directions

Cook the cauliflower

  1. Combine cauliflower, coarse sea salt, butter, and boiling water in a pot.

  2. Remove from heat before the cauliflower becomes too soft and let it cool in the water.

Marinate

  1. Drain the cauliflower and marinate for 2 hours in oil, vinegar, and white pepper.

Serve

  1. When ready to serve, place the cauliflower in a dish and cover with mayonnaise sauce.

  2. Surround the dish with croutons made from aspic jelly.

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

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

  2. Vinegar + white peppertop 20% of all pairs
    Smell alikelow
    Cooked together1,154 recipes

    Shared aroma: isobutyraldehyde (malty, green).

  3. Cauliflower + white peppertop 22% of all pairs
    Smell alikelow
    Cooked together82 recipes

    Shared aroma: 2-methylbutyraldehyde (malty, chocolate).

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

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

  5. Butter + vinegartop 23% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together13,513 recipes

    Shared aroma: isoamyl acetate (banana, pear).

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

What each ingredient does

Cauliflower
Is the main vegetable, cooked gently so it stays tender but firm.
Butter
Adds richness and a smooth fat to the cooking water.
Oil
Carries flavour and adds fat to the marinade.
Vinegar
Adds acidity that brightens the marinade and balances the rich mayonnaise.
Aspic jelly
Sets into firm pieces that give a crisp, savoury contrast as croutons.

The step that matters

Remove the cauliflower from heat before it becomes too soft. Cauliflower keeps cooking from residual heat after it leaves the pot, so pulling it early preserves a firm, tender bite that holds up through the marinade and the cold dish.

Swap the white pepper

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

  1. Tarragonfits better
  2. Capersfits better
  3. Parsleyfits better
  4. White pepperthe original

Fit is the average pairing score against cauliflower, butter, vinegar. 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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