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Cauliflower Dressed Like Maccaroni

A cauliflower dish cooked in milk and butter, then topped with cheese and broiled.

From an old cookbook · modernised transcription
From a historical cookbook (Internet Archive) · 5 ingredients
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Why it works: Milk and butter 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 Dressed Like Maccaroni

Ingredients

Directions

Prepare the cauliflower

  1. Boil the cauliflower in a mixture of milk and water with a little butter for 30 minutes, skimming well.

  2. Drain the cauliflower and chop it into small pieces.

Make the sauce and bake

  1. In a pan, combine ¼ cup butter, ¼ cup grated cheese, and ⅓ cup milk; bring to a boil.

  2. Add the chopped cauliflower and stew for 5 minutes.

  3. Transfer to a dish, sprinkle with additional grated cheese, and brown under a broiler.

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. Milk + buttertop 7% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together81,283 recipes

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

  2. Butter + cheesetop 8% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together7,962 recipes

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

  3. Milk + cheesetop 10% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together4,426 recipes

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

  4. Cauliflower + milktop 20% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together314 recipes

    Shared aroma: 1-octen-3-one (mushroom, metallic).

  5. Cauliflower + cheesetop 21% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together171 recipes

    Shared aroma: 1-octen-3-one (mushroom, metallic).

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 mild as it simmers.
Butter
Adds fat for richness and a smooth, silky mouthfeel in the sauce.
Milk
Provides liquid that creates a creamy sauce and keeps the cauliflower moist.
Grated cheese
Melts into the sauce for savory flavor and browns on top under the broiler.

The step that matters

Browning under the broiler. The topping can go from golden to burnt within moments. Browning comes from the Maillard reaction, which speeds up at high heat, so the dish needs close watching.

Swap the cauliflower

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

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

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