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Creamed Cauliflower

A creamy cauliflower dish made with milk or cream, butter, flour, salt, pepper, and grated cheese.

From an old cookbook · modernised transcription
From a historical cookbook (Internet Archive) · 7 ingredients
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Creamed Cauliflower

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 ↓

Creamed Cauliflower

Ingredients

Directions

Prepare the cauliflower

  1. Boil the cauliflower until tender.

Make the sauce

  1. In a double boiler, heat the milk or cream.

  2. Melt the butter in a cup until it bubbles.

  3. Add the flour to the butter and beat until smooth.

  4. Stir in the salt and pepper.

  5. Gradually add the boiling cream to the mixture, stirring constantly.

  6. Cook for five minutes, then add grated cheese just before serving.

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.

Photo for illustrative purposes only · Contact us to use it

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

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

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

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

  5. Cauliflower + flourtop 12% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together569 recipes

    Shared aroma: isobutyraldehyde (malty, green).

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 once cooked until tender.
Flour
Thickens the butter and milk into a smooth, creamy sauce.
Butter
Carries the flour and adds richness to the sauce.
Milk or cream
Provides the liquid base and moisture of the sauce.

The step that matters

Adding the boiling cream gradually. Flour thickens best when it is blended smoothly into the fat first and the hot liquid is added slowly while stirring constantly. Adding it all at once can trap flour in lumps that do not dissolve, leaving the sauce grainy.

Swap the cauliflower

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

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

Fit is the average pairing score against milk, butter, flour, pepper, 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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