Name: Cauliflower Au Gratin
Ingredients: 1 head cauliflower; Salt; ½ cup melted butter; 1 cup fine dry crumbs; Pepper

Why it works: Cauliflower and pepper are a kitchen classic. They rank in the top 9% of all ingredient pairs, and cooks put them together in 1,113 recipes. Both carry 4'-methylacetophenone, which smells bitter almond. The science ↓

Cauliflower Au Gratin

Ingredients

Directions

Wash the cauliflower, remove green leaves and stalks, and divide into neat bunches.
Boil in salted hot water until tender, then drain well.
Dip each piece in melted butter and coat thickly with crumbs mixed with pepper and salt.
Arrange the cauliflower flower end up in a pudding dish.
Brown the crumbs under the broiler in the oven.
Serve in a vegetable dish with a side of drawn butter.

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.

Cauliflower + peppertop 9% of all pairs

Smell alikemoderate

Cooked together1,113 recipes

Shared aroma: 4'-methylacetophenone (bitter almond).
Butter + peppertop 21% of all pairs

Smell alikemoderate

Cooked together85,593 recipes

Shared aroma: trans-2-nonenal (cardboard, fatty).
Cauliflower + buttertop 23% of all pairs

Smell alikemoderate

Cooked together823 recipes

Shared aroma: 2,3-pentanedione (butter, sweet).