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Cauliflower Soup

A soup made from cauliflower, onions, ham or celery, mace, water, butter, milk, and flour.

From an old cookbook · modernised transcription
From a historical cookbook (Internet Archive) · 8 ingredients
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Cauliflower Soup

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 Soup

Ingredients

Directions

Make the base

  1. Cook cauliflower, onions, chopped ham (or celery), mace, and water together in a lined pan.

  2. Remove some cauliflower sprigs for serving and continue boiling until everything is tender.

Strain and thicken

  1. Sieve the mixture through a fine sieve.

  2. Melt butter in a pot, add flour, then gradually stir in milk.

  3. Add the sieved soup to the pot and bring to a boil, stirring constantly.

Serve

  1. Add the reserved cauliflower sprigs to the soup for a minute, then serve immediately.

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

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

  2. Cauliflower + oniontop 10% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together935 recipes

    Shared aroma: decanal (soap, orange peel).

  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. Milk + flourtop 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

Flour
Thickens the milk and butter into a smooth, creamy base for the soup.
Butter
Adds richness and carries flavour, and helps form the thickened base with flour.
Milk
Adds creaminess and body to the soup.
Cauliflower
Forms the main body of the soup and gives its flavour.

The step that matters

Stirring while the soup comes to a boil. Flour thickens liquid only when heated with constant stirring; otherwise it can clump and leave lumps in the soup.

Swap the mace

How well each one fits the dish's main ingredients (cauliflower, onion, ham, butter, milk, flour):

  1. Capersfits better
  2. Turmericfits better
  3. Garlicfits better
  4. Macethe original

Fit is the average pairing score against cauliflower, onion, ham, butter, milk, flour. 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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