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Cauliflower and Cheese

A baked dish of cauliflower, cream sauce, cheese, buttered breadcrumbs, and red pepper.

From an old cookbook · modernised transcription
From a historical cookbook (Internet Archive) · 6 ingredients
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Why it works: Butter and bread are a kitchen classic. They rank in the top 7% of all ingredient pairs, and cooks put them together in 27,232 recipes. Both carry delta-decalactone, which smells sweet, creamy. The science ↓

Cauliflower and Cheese

Ingredients

Directions

The book gives no oven temperature. The 400°F (200°C) in the steps was added when the recipe was transcribed, as a starting point.

Prepare

  1. Boil the cauliflower until tender, then let it cool and cut it into pieces.

Assemble and bake

  1. In a baking dish, layer the cauliflower alternately with cheese and red pepper.

  2. Pour the cream sauce over the layers.

  3. Top with buttered bread crumbs.

  4. Bake at 400°F (200°C) for 10 minutes.

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 + breadtop 7% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together27,232 recipes

    Shared aroma: delta-decalactone (sweet, creamy).

  2. Cheese + breadtop 7% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together2,130 recipes

    Shared aroma: delta-decalactone (sweet, creamy).

  3. Cream + buttertop 8% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together41,516 recipes

    Shared aroma: delta-dodecalactone (sweet, creamy).

  4. Cheese + buttertop 8% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together7,962 recipes

    Shared aroma: delta-dodecalactone (sweet, creamy).

  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
Forms the bulk of the dish and gives it a tender, mild vegetable body.
Cream sauce
Adds moisture and richness so the layers stay creamy rather than dry.
Grated cheese
Melts into the sauce and browns on top, adding savoury flavour and a golden crust.
Butter
Coats the bread crumbs so they brown evenly and crisp in the oven.

The step that matters

Top with buttered bread crumbs and bake. The crumbs need enough butter to brown and crisp in the oven; without it they stay pale and soft. Baking only as long as stated also matters, since the cauliflower is already cooked and the cheese just needs to melt and set.

Swap the cauliflower

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

  1. Capsicumfits better
  2. Tomatofits better
  3. Mustardfits better
  4. Cauliflowerthe original

Fit is the average pairing score against cream, sauce, cheese, butter, pepper, bread. 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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