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Cream of Cauliflowers

A creamy soup made from boiled cauliflower, butter, flour, milk, and seasonings.

From an old cookbook · modernised transcription
From a historical cookbook (Internet Archive) · 9 ingredients
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Why it works: Butter and milk are a kitchen classic. They rank in the top 7% of all ingredient pairs, and cooks put them together in 81,283 recipes. Both carry (z)-4-heptenal, which smells biscuit, cream. The science ↓

Cream of Cauliflowers

Ingredients

Directions

Prepare the cauliflower

  1. Trim the outer leaves from the cauliflower.

  2. Wash the cauliflower in cold water.

  3. Soak the cauliflower in a large pan of cold water with a handful of salt to remove insects.

  4. Boil the cauliflower in salted water for 20 minutes until the stalk is tender.

  5. Drain the cauliflower.

  6. Cut the cauliflower into even-sized branches.

  7. Place the finest branches in cold salted water.

  8. Mash the smaller pieces through a colander.

Make the soup

  1. In a thick saucepan, melt the butter and flour over heat until bubbling.

  2. Gradually stir in the boiling water and hot milk, stirring constantly for smoothness.

  3. Season the soup with salt, white pepper, and nutmeg.

  4. Mix in the mashed cauliflower.

  5. Let the soup boil once.

  6. Serve.

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.

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

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

  2. Flour + nutmegtop 8% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together18,623 recipes

    Shared aroma: isobutyraldehyde (malty, green).

  3. Cauliflower + nutmegtop 9% of all pairs
    Smell alikestrong
    Cooked together126 recipes

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

  4. Cauliflower + flourtop 12% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together569 recipes

    Shared aroma: isobutyraldehyde (malty, green).

  5. 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

What each ingredient does

Cauliflower
Forms the body of the soup and thickens it as it is mashed through.
Butter
Carries flavour and adds richness to the roux base.
Flour
Thickens the liquid into a smooth, creamy base when cooked with the butter.
Milk
Adds creaminess, softness and a mild sweetness to the soup.

The step that matters

Stirring the roux liquid in gradually. Adding the boiling water and hot milk slowly while stirring constantly keeps the flour from clumping, so the sauce stays smooth and thickens evenly.

Swap the white pepper

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

  1. Cinnamonfits better
  2. Turmericfits better
  3. Capersfits better
  4. White pepperthe original

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