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Cauliflower Au Gratin

A baked dish of cauliflower topped with butter, Parmesan, cracker crumbs, and cayenne pepper.

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 ↓

Cauliflower Au Gratin

Ingredients

Directions

The book gives no oven temperature. The 350°F (175°C) in the steps was added when the recipe was transcribed, as a starting point.

Prepare

  1. Boil the cauliflower in salted water until tender, then divide it into small clusters.

  2. Butter a deep baking dish and layer the cauliflower clusters in it.

Layer

  1. Sprinkle each layer with butter, coarse sea salt, and black pepper.

  2. Cover with grated Parmesan cheese and then with cracker crumbs.

  3. Wet each layer with milk and repeat until the dish is filled.

  4. Finish with a layer of crumbs dotted with bits of butter and dusted with cayenne pepper.

Bake

  1. Bake covered at 350°F (175°C) for 30 minutes, then uncover and brown.

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. Butter + parmesan cheesetop 9% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together4,163 recipes

    Shared aroma: guaiacol (smoky, sweet).

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

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

  4. Pepper + parmesan cheesetop 14% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together5,322 recipes

    Shared aroma: ethyl 2-methylbutyrate (fruity, apple).

  5. Parmesan cheese + milktop 15% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together1,608 recipes

    Shared aroma: ethyl 2-methylbutyrate (fruity, apple).

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 turns tender and soft when boiled.
Parmesan cheese
Adds savory, salty flavor and helps the top brown as it bakes.
Cracker crumbs
Forms a crisp, golden topping that contrasts with the soft layers below.
Milk
Adds moisture that keeps the layers from drying out as they bake.
Butter
Adds richness and helps the crumbs and surface brown.

The step that matters

Uncover to brown the top. Baking covered traps steam, which cooks the cauliflower through without drying it. Uncovering lets the surface dry out, so the crumbs and cheese can brown through the Maillard reaction, which creates flavor and color.

Swap the cauliflower

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

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

Fit is the average pairing score against butter, pepper, parmesan cheese, milk. 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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