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Cauliflower Au Gratin

A baked cauliflower dish topped with white sauce and buttered breadcrumbs.

From an old cookbook · modernised transcription
From a historical cookbook (Internet Archive) · 4 ingredients
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Why it works: Cauliflower and bread work together. They rank in the top 16% of all ingredient pairs, and cooks put them together in 223 recipes. Both carry decanal, which smells soap, orange peel. 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. Cook the cauliflower in boiling salted water until tender, or use leftover pieces.

  2. Break the cauliflower into small pieces.

Bake and serve

  1. Cover with white sauce and soft buttered breadcrumbs.

  2. Bake at 350°F (175°C) until the crumbs are 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. Cauliflower + breadtop 16% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together223 recipes

    Shared aroma: decanal (soap, orange peel).

  2. Cauliflower + saucetop 22% of all pairs
    Smell alikelow
    Cooked together463 recipes

    Shared aroma: ethanol (alcoholic, ethereal).

  3. Sauce + breadtop 22% of all pairs
    Smell alikelow
    Cooked together4,934 recipes

    Shared aroma: ethanol (alcoholic, ethereal).

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, providing its bulk and mild, tender texture.
White sauce
Adds moisture and a creamy binding that keeps the dish saucy under the crumbs.
Bread crumbs
Form a crisp topping that browns in the oven, adding texture and color.

The step that matters

Bake until the crumbs are brown. Baking at 350°F sets the sauce and browns the buttered crumbs through Maillard browning. Pulling the dish too early leaves the topping pale and soft, while leaving it too long can dry the sauce.

Swap the cauliflower

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

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

Fit is the average pairing score against sauce, 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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