Name: To Dress a Cauliflower
Ingredients: 1 cauliflower; 2 teaspoons coarse sea salt; ½ ounce butter; 1 ounce flour; 1 tablespoon cream; 2 ounces Parmesan cheese; Cayenne pepper to taste

Why it works: Butter and cream are a kitchen classic. They rank in the top 8% of all ingredient pairs, and cooks put them together in 41,516 recipes. Both carry delta-dodecalactone, which smells sweet, creamy. The science ↓

To Dress a Cauliflower

Ingredients

Directions

Wash the cauliflower well in cold water and trim the stalk and any wilted leaves.
Soak it in a basin of cold water with 2 teaspoons of salt for 2-3 minutes.
Boil a large saucepan of water.
Once boiling, add 1 tablespoon of salt.
Place the cauliflower in the boiling water, flower side down, and cook for 15-20 minutes until tender.
Check tenderness by feeling the center with your finger.
Remove the cauliflower and place it on a sieve to drain.
Serve on a hot vegetable dish.

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.

Butter + creamtop 8% of all pairs

Smell alikemoderate

Cooked together41,516 recipes

Shared aroma: delta-dodecalactone (sweet, creamy).
Butter + parmesan cheesetop 9% of all pairs

Smell alikemoderate

Cooked together4,163 recipes

Shared aroma: guaiacol (smoky, sweet).
Cauliflower + peppertop 9% of all pairs

Smell alikemoderate

Cooked together1,113 recipes

Shared aroma: 4'-methylacetophenone (bitter almond).
Cauliflower + flourtop 12% of all pairs

Smell alikemoderate

Cooked together569 recipes

Shared aroma: isobutyraldehyde (malty, green).
Butter + flourtop 12% of all pairs

Smell alikelow

Cooked 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

Swap the cauliflower

How well each one fits the dish's main ingredients (butter, flour, cream, parmesan cheese, pepper):

Spinachfits better
Asparagusfits better
Potatofits better
Cauliflowerthe original

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