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Cauliflower Dressed Like Maccaroni

A cauliflower dish cooked in milk and butter, then simmered with cheese and browned under a broiler.

From an old cookbook · modernised transcription
From a historical cookbook (Internet Archive) · 5 ingredients
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Why it works: Milk and butter 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 ↓

Cauliflower Dressed Like Maccaroni

Ingredients

Directions

Prepare the cauliflower

  1. Boil the cauliflower in milk and water with a little butter for 30 minutes, skimming well.

  2. When tender, drain and divide it into small pieces.

Make the sauce and finish

  1. In a pan, combine 2 tablespoons butter, ¼ cup grated cheese, and ⅓ cup milk; bring to a boil.

  2. Add the cauliflower pieces and stew for 5 minutes.

  3. Transfer to a dish, top with more grated cheese, and brown under a broiler.

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

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

  2. Butter + cheesetop 8% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together7,962 recipes

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

  3. Milk + cheesetop 10% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together4,426 recipes

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

  4. Cauliflower + milktop 20% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together314 recipes

    Shared aroma: 1-octen-3-one (mushroom, metallic).

  5. Cauliflower + cheesetop 21% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together171 recipes

    Shared aroma: 1-octen-3-one (mushroom, metallic).

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, giving it a soft, tender body once boiled.
Milk
Provides moisture and forms the base of the cheese sauce.
Butter
Adds richness and fat, carrying flavour through the sauce.
Grated cheese
Melts into the sauce for savoury flavour and browns on top under the broiler.

The step that matters

Top with cheese and brown under the broiler. Cheese browns quickly under high direct heat, so it can scorch before it is golden. Watching closely lets the proteins and sugars brown evenly without burning.

Swap the cauliflower

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

  1. Potatofits better
  2. Tomatofits better
  3. Capsicumfits better
  4. Cauliflowerthe original

Fit is the average pairing score against milk, butter, cheese. 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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