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Grated Cheese and Cauliflower

A baked cauliflower dish with cheese, cream, bread crumbs, and spices.

From an old cookbook · modernised transcription
From a historical cookbook (Internet Archive) · 9 ingredients
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Why it works: Bread and cheese are a kitchen classic. They rank in the top 7% of all ingredient pairs, and cooks put them together in 2,130 recipes. Both carry delta-decalactone, which smells sweet, creamy. The science ↓

Grated Cheese and Cauliflower

Ingredients

Directions

Make the sauce

  1. Boil the cream or milk with the chopped onion.

  2. Add the grated cheese (reserve some for sprinkling) and let it boil.

  3. Remove from heat and gradually stir in the egg yolk, pepper, salt, cayenne, and bread crumbs. Keep the mixture warm.

Prepare and bake

  1. Boil the cauliflower until tender, with the head down in an open pot.

  2. Break the cauliflower into neat pieces, removing all green and stalk.

  3. Pour the cheese mixture over the cauliflower in a baking dish.

  4. Sprinkle with remaining bread crumbs and grated cheese.

  5. Bake for a few minutes and serve with cutlets.

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. Bread + cheesetop 7% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together2,130 recipes

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

  2. Cauliflower + peppertop 9% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together1,113 recipes

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

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

    Shared aroma: decanal (soap, orange peel).

  4. Onion + peppertop 11% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together68,474 recipes

    Shared aroma: 2-isopropyl-3-methoxypyrazine (earthy, pea).

  5. Egg + breadtop 13% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together22,662 recipes

    Shared aroma: (e)-2-octenal (fatty, green).

Ranks compare each pair with 20,000 random ingredient pairs on CompKitchen. How we score pairs

What each ingredient does

Cauliflower
Forms the bulk of the dish and holds the sauce once cooked until tender.
Egg yolk
Thickens the cheese sauce gently and binds it as it sets.
Cheese
Melts into the sauce to give richness and a savory, creamy flavor.
Cream or milk
Provides moisture and a smooth base for the cheese sauce.
Bread crumbs
Thickens the sauce and forms a crisp, browned topping when baked.

The step that matters

Stir the egg yolk in off the heat. Adding the yolk after the mixture is removed from heat and stirred gradually keeps it from scrambling, so the sauce stays smooth and thickens evenly.

Swap the cauliflower

How well each one fits the dish's main ingredients (egg, cream, bread, onion, cheese, pepper):

  1. Potatofits better
  2. Capsicumfits better
  3. Spinachfits better
  4. Cauliflowerthe original

Fit is the average pairing score against egg, cream, bread, onion, cheese, pepper. 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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