Skip to main content
Soup

Cream of Cauliflower Soup

A creamy soup made from cauliflower leaves, core, milk, flour, butter, salt, and cayenne pepper.

From an old cookbook · modernised transcription
From a historical cookbook (Internet Archive) · 6 ingredients
Jump to recipe ↓
Cream of Cauliflower Soup

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 ↓

Cream of Cauliflower Soup

Ingredients

Directions

Make the cauliflower purée

  1. Cook the finely chopped inner leaves and tender core of the cauliflower in 1 quart of water until very tender, simmering in an uncovered pot.

  2. Rub the cooked mixture through a coarse sieve.

Make the soup

  1. Melt the butter in a double boiler.

  2. Add the flour to the melted butter and cook for a moment.

  3. Stir in a little of the milk until smooth.

  4. Add the rest of the milk and the cauliflower purée.

  5. Heat the mixture.

  6. Serve.

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. Cream + buttertop 8% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together41,516 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. 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
Provides the main body and flavour of the soup once puréed.
Milk
Forms the liquid base and gives the soup a creamy, smooth texture.
Flour
Thickens the milk into a smooth, velvety soup when cooked with butter.
Butter
Adds richness and fat, and cooks with the flour to form the thickening base.

The step that matters

Stirring in a little milk until smooth. Flour lumps form if it is added to liquid too quickly. Blending it with a small amount of milk first lets the starch disperse evenly, so the soup thickens smoothly.

Swap the cauliflower

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

  1. Potatofits better
  2. Leekfits better
  3. Spinachfits better
  4. Cauliflowerthe original

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

You might also like

Indian Spiced Potato Soup with Tofu and SpinachIndian Spiced Potato Soup with Tofu and Spinach448 recipesClear Carrot and Bottle Gourd SoupClear Carrot and Bottle Gourd Soup65 recipesMock Bisque SoupMock Bisque Soup51 recipesCream of Asparagus SoupCream of Asparagus Soup42 recipes