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Soup

Cream of Cauliflower

A creamy cauliflower soup made with butter, broth, water, parsley, onion, bay leaf, spices, milk, cream, egg yolks, and finished with butter.

From an old cookbook · modernised transcription
From a historical cookbook (Internet Archive) · 17 ingredients
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Why it works: Clove and nutmeg match in chemistry and in kitchens. They rank in the top 1% of all ingredient pairs, and cooks put them together in 8,686 recipes. Both carry estragole, which smells anise, licorice. The science ↓

Cream of Cauliflower

Ingredients

Directions

Prepare the cauliflower

  1. Clean the cauliflower.

  2. Soak the cauliflower.

  3. Boil the cauliflower for 10 minutes.

  4. Remove and drain the cauliflower.

  5. Cut the cauliflower into small pieces.

  6. Place the cauliflower pieces in a saucepan with 1 ounce of butter. Cook the cauliflower for 5 minutes.

Make the broth

  1. Add 1 quart of broth, 3 pints of water, parsley, onion with cloves, and bay leaf to the saucepan.

  2. Season the mixture with 1 tablespoon salt, ½ teaspoon cayenne pepper, and a pinch of nutmeg.

  3. Boil the mixture slowly for 1 hour.

Make the soup

  1. Rub 1 ounce of butter with 2½ ounces of flour in a hot saucepan.

  2. Strain the cauliflower broth into the butter‑flour mixture and stir well.

  3. Rub the vegetables through a sieve and return them to the soup.

  4. Boil the soup for 15 minutes while stirring.

  5. Add 1 cup of milk and 3 tablespoons of cream to the soup.

  6. Cook the soup again.

  7. Mix 2 egg yolks with 3 tablespoons of cream and add the mixture to the soup with 1 ounce of butter.

  8. Stir the soup until it is hot.

  9. Strain the soup.

  10. Serve the soup with croutons.

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. Clove + nutmegtop 1% of all pairs
    Smell alikestrong
    Cooked together8,686 recipes

    Shared aroma: estragole (anise, licorice).

  2. Parsley + peppertop 2% of all pairs
    Smell alikestrong
    Cooked together34,122 recipes

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

  3. Parsley + nutmegtop 3% of all pairs
    Smell alikestrong
    Cooked together5,062 recipes

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

  4. Clove + peppertop 5% of all pairs
    Smell alikestrong
    Cooked together17,451 recipes

    Shared aroma: ethyl octanoate (fruity, wine).

  5. Cauliflower + parsleytop 5% of all pairs
    Smell alikestrong
    Cooked together233 recipes

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

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

What each ingredient does

Cauliflower
Forms the body of the soup and, once pureed through a sieve, gives it its thick, creamy texture.
Flour
Cooked with butter into a roux, it thickens the soup.
Egg yolks
Stirred in near the end, they enrich the soup and add body and richness.
Milk
Adds liquid and mild sweetness, softening the soup's flavour and colour.
Cream
Adds richness and smoothness to the finished soup.
Butter
Adds fat and flavour, and helps form the roux that thickens the soup.

The step that matters

Adding the egg yolks. Egg yolks thicken when heated, so the soup must be hot but not boiling when they go in. If it boils, the yolks can scramble and curdle the soup.

Swap the onion

How well each one fits the dish's main ingredients (cauliflower, butter, parsley, clove, pepper, nutmeg, flour):

  1. Shallotfits better
  2. Turnipfits better
  3. Parsnipfits better
  4. Onionthe original

Fit is the average pairing score against cauliflower, butter, parsley, clove, pepper, nutmeg, flour. 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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