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Parmesan and Cauliflower

A baked cauliflower dish topped with Parmesan cheese and white sauce.

From an old cookbook · modernised transcription
From a historical cookbook (Internet Archive) · 3 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 ↓

Parmesan and Cauliflower

Ingredients

Directions

Prepare the cauliflower

  1. Boil the cauliflower until tender, then drain it well.

Make the cheese sauce

  1. Combine ½ cup grated Parmesan and ¼ pint good white sauce in a saucepan.

  2. Simmer for 4-5 minutes.

  3. Add the drained cauliflower to the saucepan.

  4. Cook gently for 10 minutes.

Assemble and serve

  1. Transfer the cauliflower to a serving dish.

  2. Grate another ½ cup of Parmesan on top.

  3. Brown it under a broiler for 1-2 minutes.

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

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

  2. Parmesan cheese + saucetop 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 bulk of the dish and soaks up the creamy sauce.
Parmesan cheese
Adds savoury, salty flavour and browns on top under the broiler.
White sauce
Provides creamy moisture that coats the cauliflower and carries the cheese flavour.

The step that matters

Brown under the broiler for 1-2 minutes. Parmesan contains milk proteins and sugars that brown quickly through the Maillard reaction, so the topping can scorch within moments. Watch it closely and remove it as soon as it turns golden.

Swap the cauliflower

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

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

Fit is the average pairing score against parmesan cheese, sauce. 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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