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Cauliflower Au Gratin

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

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

Ingredients

Directions

The book gives no oven temperature. The 400°F (200°C) in the steps was added when the recipe was transcribed, as a starting point.

Prepare the cauliflower

  1. Boil the cauliflower in salted water until tender.

Make the cheese sauce

  1. In a saucepan, make a white sauce by mixing milk and flour over medium heat until thickened.

  2. Stir in the grated cheese until melted.

Assemble and bake

  1. Butter a baking dish and place the cauliflower in it.

  2. Cover the cauliflower completely with the cheese sauce.

  3. Sprinkle breadcrumbs and additional grated cheese on top.

  4. Dot with bits of butter and bake at 400°F (200°C) for 15 to 20 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. Milk + buttertop 7% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together81,283 recipes

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

  2. Cheese + buttertop 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 + flourtop 12% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together569 recipes

    Shared aroma: isobutyraldehyde (malty, green).

  5. Flour + buttertop 12% of all pairs
    Smell alikelow
    Cooked together124,287 recipes

    Shared aroma: isobutyraldehyde (malty, green).

Flour and butter barely smell alike, yet cooks put them together in 124,287 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

Cauliflower
Forms the tender vegetable base that the sauce covers and bakes.
Milk
Liquid that flour thickens into the smooth white sauce.
Flour
Thickens the milk into a sauce by swelling as it heats.
Grated cheese
Melts into the sauce, adding richness and savory flavor.
Breadcrumbs
Form a crisp, browned topping in the oven.
Butter
Adds fat and richness, and helps the topping brown.

The step that matters

Making the white sauce. Flour must be cooked with the milk over medium heat until thickened. Stirring keeps it smooth, and cooking the sauce fully removes raw flour taste and gives it body before the cheese is added.

Swap the cauliflower

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

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

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

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