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Italian Cauliflower

Baked cauliflower topped with white sauce, cheese, butter, and breadcrumbs, garnished with watercress or parsley.

From an old cookbook · modernised transcription
From a historical cookbook (Internet Archive) · 7 ingredients
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Why it works: Cauliflower and watercress share more aroma than cooks usually use. They rank in the top 4% of all ingredient pairs, and cooks put them together in 10 recipes. Both carry coumarin, which smells sweet, hay. The science ↓

Italian Cauliflower

Oven, in the book's wordsA hot oven

Ingredients

Directions

The book says “a hot oven”. The 400°F (200°C) in the steps is the modern equivalent, not the book's own figure.

Cook the cauliflower

  1. Wash the cauliflower and cook it in salted boiling water until tender.

  2. Carefully remove it with a skimmer to avoid breaking.

  3. Place it on a platter, flower side up.

Top and bake

  1. Dip white sauce over the cauliflower using a spoon.

  2. Grate a generous amount of cheese over it.

  3. Dot with bits of butter and sprinkle with bread crumbs.

  4. Bake for 20 minutes at 400°F (200°C).

  5. Garnish with watercress or parsley before serving.

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 + watercresstop 4% of all pairs
    Smell alikestrong
    Cooked together10 recipes

    Shared aroma: coumarin (sweet, hay).

  2. Butter + breadtop 7% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together27,232 recipes

    Shared aroma: delta-decalactone (sweet, creamy).

  3. Cheese + breadtop 7% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together2,130 recipes

    Shared aroma: delta-decalactone (sweet, creamy).

  4. Cheese + buttertop 8% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together7,962 recipes

    Shared aroma: delta-dodecalactone (sweet, creamy).

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

    Shared aroma: ethanol (alcoholic, ethereal).

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

Cauliflower
Forms the tender vegetable base that the sauce and topping rest on.
White sauce
Adds moisture and creamy richness that keeps the cauliflower from drying out.
Grated cheese
Melts into the sauce and browns on top, adding savoury flavour.
Butter
Adds fat that helps the crumbs brown and gives a rich finish.
Bread crumbs
Form a crisp, golden crust on top during baking.

The step that matters

Removing the cauliflower from the water. Cooked cauliflower is soft and its florets break easily. Lifting it gently with a skimmer, and keeping it whole, preserves the head's shape for serving.

Swap the cauliflower

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

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

Fit is the average pairing score against sauce, cheese, butter, bread, watercress. 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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