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Cauliflower with Sauce

Boiled cauliflower topped with a butter, flour, and milk sauce.

From an old cookbook · modernised transcription
By Mansfield, W. H., & co., Putnam, Conn., pub. [from old catalog] · From a historical cookbook (Internet Archive) · 5 ingredients
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Why it works: Milk and flour are a kitchen classic. They rank in the top 14% of all ingredient pairs, and cooks put them together in 78,219 recipes. Both carry isobutyraldehyde, which smells malty, green. The science ↓

Cauliflower with Sauce

Ingredients

Directions

Cook the cauliflower

  1. Boil the cauliflower until tender in well salted water.

Make the sauce

  1. Put pieces of butter the size of an egg into a pan; when it bubbles, stir in half a cupful of flour.

  2. Add two cups of milk, pepper and salt.

  3. Stir all together over the fire until smooth.

  4. Pour the sauce over the cauliflower.

Prepare the asparagus

  1. Tie the asparagus stalks in bunches with the heads all one way.

  2. Boil in salted water twenty minutes.

  3. Prepare thin slices of toast.

  4. Drain the asparagus, lay it on the toast, pour over it.

Nutrition, whole recipe (rough)

610Calories
21 gProtein
9 gFat
108 gCarbs
What these numbers assume: 4 portions
IngredientPortion assumedkcal
Flour1 cup (125g) all-purpose455
Milk1 cup (244ml) whole149
Black Pepper1 tsp ground (2.3g)6
Salt1 tsp (6g)0

One typical portion per ingredient; the recipe's quantities are not counted. A rough guide only, not for medical or dietary planning.

By Mansfield, W. H., & co., Putnam, Conn., pub. [from old catalog]. 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. See the original page.

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 + flourtop 14% of all pairs
    Smell alikelow
    Cooked together78,219 recipes

    Shared aroma: isobutyraldehyde (malty, green).

  2. Flour + peppertop 19% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together50,459 recipes

    Shared aroma: isobutyraldehyde (malty, green).

  3. Milk + peppertop 22% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together26,984 recipes

    Shared aroma: ethyl 2-methylbutyrate (fruity, apple).

Milk and flour barely smell alike, yet cooks put them together in 78,219 recipes: they work on texture and structure more than aroma.

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

What each ingredient does

Flour
Thickens the milk into a smooth sauce as its starch swells when heated.
Milk
Forms the liquid base of the sauce, giving it body and a creamy texture.

The step that matters

Stirring the flour into the sauce. Flour must be stirred well into the melted butter and then the milk, and kept moving over heat. Stirring keeps the starch dispersed so the sauce cooks smooth instead of lumpy.

“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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