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Cauliflower Soup Puree

A creamy cauliflower soup made by puréeing cooked cauliflower with broth, cream, egg yolks, butter, and garnished with boiled chicken.

From an old cookbook · modernised transcription
From a historical cookbook (Internet Archive) · 8 ingredients
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Why it works: Cream and butter 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 ↓

Cauliflower Soup Puree

Ingredients

Directions

Make the soup

  1. Cook the cauliflower until tender, then drain.

  2. In a saucepan, combine the cauliflower with the broth and season with salt and pepper.

  3. Rub the mixture through a fine sieve and return it to the saucepan.

  4. Boil for 10 minutes.

Finish and serve

  1. Before serving, mix in the cream, egg yolks, and butter.

  2. Garnish with small square pieces of boiled chicken breast.

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

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

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

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

  3. Chicken + buttertop 15% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together13,902 recipes

    Shared aroma: 2-furfurylthiol (coffee, roasted).

  4. Chicken + peppertop 16% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together19,958 recipes

    Shared aroma: piperonal (bitter, coconut).

  5. Egg + buttertop 17% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together118,967 recipes

    Shared aroma: decanal (soap, orange peel).

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, once sieved, gives it a smooth, thick texture.
Chicken or veal broth
Provides the liquid base and savory flavor for the soup.
Cream
Adds richness and a smooth, velvety mouthfeel.
Egg yolks
Enrich and thicken the soup, adding body and a silky texture.
Butter
Adds fat for richness and a rounded, smooth flavor.

The step that matters

Adding the egg yolks. Egg yolks thicken through gentle heat. If the soup boils after they are added, they can scramble and curdle, leaving a grainy texture. Stir them in off the heat or over very low heat.

Swap the cauliflower

How well each one fits the dish's main ingredients (chicken, pepper, cream, egg, butter):

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

Fit is the average pairing score against chicken, pepper, cream, egg, butter. 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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