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Caulifloweks a LA Sauce Blanche

Cauliflower a la sauce blanche is boiled cauliflower served with a white sauce of melted butter and sauce blanche.

From an old cookbook · modernised transcription
From a historical cookbook (Internet Archive) · 5 ingredients
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Why it works: Sauce and butter are a kitchen classic. They rank in the top 15% of all ingredient pairs, and cooks put them together in 15,338 recipes. Both carry ethanol, which smells alcoholic, ethereal. The science ↓

Caulifloweks a LA Sauce Blanche

Ingredients

Directions

Prepare

  1. Clean the cauliflowers and cut the stalks flat at the bottom.

Cook

  1. Boil the cauliflowers in salted water with the butter until tender.

  2. Remove them immediately to prevent breaking.

Serve

  1. Drain well and arrange them in the shape of a large cauliflower.

  2. Pour the sauce over and serve hot.

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. Sauce + buttertop 15% of all pairs
    Smell alikelow
    Cooked together15,338 recipes

    Shared aroma: ethanol (alcoholic, ethereal).

  2. Cauliflower + saucetop 22% of all pairs
    Smell alikelow
    Cooked together463 recipes

    Shared aroma: ethanol (alcoholic, ethereal).

  3. Cauliflower + buttertop 23% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together823 recipes

    Shared aroma: 2,3-pentanedione (butter, sweet).

Sauce and butter barely smell alike, yet cooks put them together in 15,338 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

Cauliflowers
Form the main body of the dish, becoming tender when boiled.
Butter
Adds richness and a smooth, mellow flavour to the cooking water and dish.
Sauce blanche
Adds a rich, creamy coating that gives moisture and flavour to the cauliflower.

The step that matters

Remove them immediately. Cauliflower held in boiling water keeps cooking and softens past tender, so it can break apart. Lifting it out as soon as it is tender keeps the florets intact and the shape presentable.

Swap the cauliflower

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

  1. Shallotfits better
  2. Mustardfits better
  3. Onionfits better
  4. Cauliflowerthe original

Fit is the average pairing score against sauce, 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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