Name: Baked Cauliflower
Ingredients: 1 head cauliflower; 1 cup grated cheese; ¼ teaspoon red pepper; 1 cup cream sauce; ½ cup bread crumbs

Why it works: Cheese and bread 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 ↓

Baked Cauliflower

Ingredients

Directions

Boil the cauliflower until tender.
Break the cauliflower into flowerlets.
Layer the flowerlets in a baking dish with cheese, red pepper, and cream sauce.
Sprinkle bread crumbs on top.

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.

Cheese + breadtop 7% of all pairs

Smell alikemoderate

Cooked together2,130 recipes

Shared aroma: delta-decalactone (sweet, creamy).
Cauliflower + peppertop 9% of all pairs

Smell alikemoderate

Cooked together1,113 recipes

Shared aroma: 4'-methylacetophenone (bitter almond).
Cream + saucetop 9% of all pairs

Smell alikemoderate

Cooked together4,787 recipes

Shared aroma: ethanol (alcoholic, ethereal).
Cheese + creamtop 15% of all pairs

Smell alikemoderate

Cooked together2,655 recipes

Shared aroma: delta-dodecalactone (sweet, creamy).
Cauliflower + breadtop 16% of all pairs

Smell alikemoderate

Cooked together223 recipes

Shared aroma: decanal (soap, orange peel).

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

Swap the cauliflower

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

Capsicumfits better
Tomatofits better
Mustardfits better
Cauliflowerthe original

Fit is the average pairing score against cheese, pepper, cream, sauce, bread. Candidates are from the same food group and used in at least 100 recipes.