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Cauliflower En-gratin

A baked cauliflower dish topped with a butter‑flour‑milk cheese sauce.

From an old cookbook · modernised transcription
From a historical cookbook (Internet Archive) · 6 ingredients
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Why it works: Butter and milk 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 En-gratin

Ingredients

Directions

Prepare the cauliflower

  1. Boil the cauliflower as directed in a separate recipe for boiled cauliflower.

Make the cheese sauce

  1. In a frying pan, melt the butter over medium heat.

  2. Add the flour and mix until smooth.

  3. Gradually stir in the milk and continue stirring until it boils.

  4. Add the salt and grated cheese, mixing until combined.

Serve

  1. Pour the cheese sauce over the cauliflower and 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.

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. Butter + milktop 7% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together81,283 recipes

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

  2. Butter + parmesan cheesetop 9% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together4,163 recipes

    Shared aroma: guaiacol (smoky, sweet).

  3. Cauliflower + flourtop 12% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together569 recipes

    Shared aroma: isobutyraldehyde (malty, green).

  4. Butter + flourtop 12% of all pairs
    Smell alikelow
    Cooked together124,287 recipes

    Shared aroma: isobutyraldehyde (malty, green).

  5. Flour + milktop 14% of all pairs
    Smell alikelow
    Cooked together78,219 recipes

    Shared aroma: isobutyraldehyde (malty, green).

Butter and flour 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 main body of the gratin and holds the sauce.
Butter
Provides fat and richness, and forms the base of the roux.
Flour
Thickens the butter and milk into a smooth, stable sauce.
Milk
Forms the liquid base of the sauce, giving it a creamy texture.
Parmesan cheese
Adds savory flavor and salty depth to the sauce.

The step that matters

Stirring the milk into the roux. Adding the milk gradually while stirring keeps lumps from forming. Continued stirring until it boils lets the starch in the flour swell and thicken the sauce evenly.

Swap the cauliflower

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

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

Fit is the average pairing score against butter, flour, milk, 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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