Skip to main content
Main

Escaloped Cauliflower

A baked cauliflower dish layered with béchamel sauce, cheese, breadcrumbs, and butter.

From an old cookbook · modernised transcription
From a historical cookbook (Internet Archive) · 6 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 ↓

Escaloped Cauliflower

Oven, in the book's wordsA moderate oven

Ingredients

Directions

The book says “a moderate oven”. The 350°F (175°C) in the steps is the modern equivalent, not the book's own figure.

Prepare the cauliflower

  1. Cook cauliflower in salted water for 1 hour.

  2. Drain and break it apart.

Layer and bake

  1. Layer cauliflower in an oven-safe dish, moistening each layer with béchamel or cream sauce and sprinkling with grated cheese.

  2. Continue layering until all cauliflower is used, ensuring to use 2 tablespoons of cheese and 1 pint of sauce for each head.

  3. Cover the top with breadcrumbs and cheese, then dot with bits of butter.

  4. Bake in a 350°F (175°C) oven for 30 minutes.

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. Cheese + breadtop 7% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together2,130 recipes

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

  3. Cream + buttertop 8% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together41,516 recipes

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

  4. Cheese + buttertop 8% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together7,962 recipes

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

  5. Cream + cheesetop 15% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together2,655 recipes

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

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 dish and softens into tender layers as it cooks.
Béchamel or cream sauce
Adds moisture and a creamy texture that keeps the layers from drying out.
Grated cheese
Melts into the sauce and browns on top, adding savoury flavour.
Bread crumbs
Form a crisp, golden topping during baking.
Butter
Adds fat that promotes browning and richness on the surface.

The step that matters

Layer and bake. Moistening each layer with sauce keeps the cauliflower from drying out in the oven. Even distribution of sauce and cheese gives a creamy interior and a well-browned top.

Swap the cauliflower

How well each one fits the dish's main ingredients (cream, cheese, bread, butter):

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

Fit is the average pairing score against cream, cheese, bread, butter. 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 recipesMacaroni and CheeseMacaroni and Cheese102 recipesWhite BreadWhite Bread80 recipesBread OmeletteBread Omelette60 recipes