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Cream of Cauliflower Soup

A creamy soup made from cauliflower, onion, celery, stock, milk, and butter, seasoned with salt, pepper, and celery salt.

From an old cookbook · modernised transcription
From a historical cookbook (Internet Archive) · 11 ingredients
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Cream of Cauliflower Soup

Why it works: Celery and pepper match in chemistry and in kitchens. They rank in the top 5% of all ingredient pairs, and cooks put them together in 16,012 recipes. Both carry 4'-methylacetophenone, which smells bitter almond. The science ↓

Cream of Cauliflower Soup

Ingredients

Directions

Prepare the cauliflower

  1. Soak the cauliflower head in cold water for 1 hour.

  2. Cook the cauliflower in boiling salted water for 20 minutes.

  3. Reserve half of the florets and rub the remaining cauliflower through a sieve.

Make the soup

  1. Cook the onion, celery, and bay leaf in butter for 5 minutes.

  2. Remove the bay leaf, then add flour and stir into the hot stock or water.

  3. Add the pureed cauliflower and milk, then season with salt and pepper.

  4. Strain the soup, add the reserved florets, and reheat before serving.

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.

Photo for illustrative purposes only · Contact us to use it

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. Celery + peppertop 5% of all pairs
    Smell alikestrong
    Cooked together16,012 recipes

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

  2. Cauliflower + celerytop 6% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together488 recipes

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

  3. Butter + milktop 7% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together81,283 recipes

    Shared aroma: (z)-4-heptenal (biscuit, cream).

  4. Onion + celerytop 7% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together18,518 recipes

    Shared aroma: guaiacol (smoky, sweet).

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

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

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

What each ingredient does

Cauliflower
Provides the main body and flavor, and the pureed portion thickens the soup.
Flour
Thickens the stock into a smooth base as it is stirred in.
Butter
Carries the aromatics and adds richness to the soup.
Milk
Adds creaminess and softens the soup's flavor.

The step that matters

Rubbing the cauliflower through a sieve. Pushing the cooked cauliflower through a sieve breaks its cell walls into a fine, smooth puree. Skipping or rushing this leaves fibrous, grainy texture in a soup meant to be creamy.

Swap the onion

How well each one fits the dish's main ingredients (cauliflower, flour, butter, milk, celery, pepper):

  1. Turnipfits better
  2. Leekfits better
  3. Asparagusfits better
  4. Onionthe original

Fit is the average pairing score against cauliflower, flour, butter, milk, celery, 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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