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Cauliflower

Boiled cauliflower served with Hollandaise or white sauce, optionally topped with Parmesan cheese.

From an old cookbook · modernised transcription
From a historical cookbook (Internet Archive) · 6 ingredients
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Why it works: Cauliflower and parmesan cheese work together. They rank in the top 19% of all ingredient pairs, and cooks put them together in 138 recipes. Both carry 4'-methylacetophenone, which smells bitter almond. The science ↓

Cauliflower

Ingredients

Directions

Prepare

  1. Trim nearly all the green leaves from the cauliflower, leaving only one circle of young green.

  2. Soak the cauliflower in cold water with ½ cup of coarse sea salt for a while.

  3. Rinse the cauliflower in two waters.

Cook and serve

  1. Boil the cauliflower in a large pot of water with 1 tablespoon of salt and ¼ teaspoon of baking soda for about 25 minutes, until the stalk is just tender.

  2. Serve with Hollandaise or white sauce, and optionally sprinkle with grated Parmesan cheese.

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. Cauliflower + parmesan cheesetop 19% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together138 recipes

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

  2. Sauce + parmesan cheesetop 19% of all pairs
    Smell alikelow
    Cooked together1,294 recipes

    Shared aroma: decanoic acid (soapy, waxy).

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

    Shared aroma: ethanol (alcoholic, ethereal).

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, and its stalk becomes tender through boiling.
Baking soda
Raises the water's pH, which helps the cauliflower soften more evenly during boiling.
Hollandaise sauce
Adds richness and fat, balancing the mild flavour of the cooked cauliflower.

The step that matters

Boil until the stalk is just tender. Overcooking breaks down the cauliflower's cell walls, leaving it mushy and waterlogged, while undercooking leaves the stalk firm and raw-tasting. Checking the stalk near the end of the cooking time helps hit the right texture.

Swap the cauliflower

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

  1. Tomatofits better
  2. Asparagusfits better
  3. Spinachfits better
  4. Cauliflowerthe original

Fit is the average pairing score against sauce, parmesan 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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