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Cauliflower, with Butter Sauce

A boiled cauliflower served with a butter sauce.

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, with Butter Sauce

Ingredients

Directions

Prepare

  1. Wash and trim the cauliflower.

  2. Place the cauliflower in a saucepan and cover with water.

Cook

  1. Add salt when the water boils.

  2. Cook slowly, adding milk and butter until tender.

Drain and serve

  1. Drain on a napkin, being careful not to break the flowered buds.

  2. Serve on a napkin with butter sauce on the side.

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

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

  3. Cauliflower + buttertop 23% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together823 recipes

    Shared aroma: 2,3-pentanedione (butter, sweet).

Ranks compare each pair with 20,000 random ingredient pairs on CompKitchen. How we score pairs

What each ingredient does

Cauliflower
Forms the main body of the dish, cooking until tender while holding its shape.
Butter
Adds fat and richness, forming the sauce served alongside the cauliflower.
Milk
Adds moisture and mild sweetness to the cooking liquid and sauce.

The step that matters

Drain on a napkin, being careful not to break the flowered buds.. Cauliflower florets are fragile once cooked and break easily when handled. Gentle draining keeps the buds intact, so the head looks neat and the florets do not turn mushy or crumble.

Swap the cauliflower

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

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

Fit is the average pairing score against milk, 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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