Why it works: Tomato and onion are a kitchen classic. They rank in the top 8% of all ingredient pairs, and cooks put them together in 20,633 recipes. Both carry 2-isopropyl-3-methoxypyrazine, which smells earthy, pea. The science ↓
Boiled Cauliflower with Tomato Sauce
Ingredients
Directions
The book gives no oven temperature. The 350°F (175°C) in the steps was added when the recipe was transcribed, as a starting point.
Prepare the cauliflower
Boil the cauliflower until tender.
Chop the cauliflower coarsely.
Press the chopped cauliflower into a bowl or mold to hold its shape.
Place the molded cauliflower on a heatproof dish.
Make the sauce
In a saucepan, cook the butter and flour together.
Pour in the strained tomato juice and add the stewed onion.
Stir until smooth.
Thicken with cracker dust and season with salt to taste.
Bake and serve
Pour the sauce over the cauliflower.
Bake in a 350°F (175°C) oven for about 10 minutes.
Serve in the dish it was cooked in.
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.
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Tomato + oniontop 8% of all pairsSmell alikemoderateCooked together20,633 recipes
Shared aroma: 2-isopropyl-3-methoxypyrazine (earthy, pea).
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Cauliflower + oniontop 10% of all pairsSmell alikemoderateCooked together935 recipes
Shared aroma: decanal (soap, orange peel).
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Cauliflower + tomatotop 10% of all pairsSmell alikemoderateCooked together91 recipes
Shared aroma: 1-octen-3-one (mushroom, metallic).
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Cauliflower + flourtop 12% of all pairsSmell alikemoderateCooked together569 recipes
Shared aroma: isobutyraldehyde (malty, green).
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Butter + flourtop 12% of all pairsSmell alikelowCooked together124,287 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 bulk of the dish and, once pressed and molded, holds its shape when unmolded.
- Butter
- Enriches the sauce and carries flavour, and cooks with the flour to start the thickening base.
- Flour
- Thickens the sauce by swelling in the hot liquid to give it body.
- Strained tomato juice
- Forms the liquid base of the sauce, adding moisture and tangy tomato flavour.
- Cracker dust
- Adds further thickening to the sauce so it clings to the cauliflower.
The step that matters
Thicken the sauce until smooth. Flour must be cooked with the butter and whisked into the liquid without lumps. Stirring until smooth lets the starch hydrate evenly, so the sauce thickens properly instead of staying thin or clumpy.
Swap the tomato
How well each one fits the dish's main ingredients (cauliflower, butter, flour, onion, sugar):
- Leekfits better
- Turnipfits better
- Chivefits better
- Tomatothe original
Fit is the average pairing score against cauliflower, butter, flour, onion, sugar. 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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