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Cauliflower Pie

A baked pie of cauliflower and potatoes with a wheatmeal batter.

From an old cookbook · modernised transcription
From a historical cookbook (Internet Archive) · 9 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 Pie

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 the vegetables

  1. Parboil the cauliflower and potatoes.

  2. Cut the cauliflower into pieces and slice the potatoes.

  3. Place both in a pie dish with the butter, pepper, and salt.

Make the batter and bake

  1. In a bowl, mix the wheatmeal, milk, and beaten eggs to make a batter.

  2. Pour the batter over the vegetables and mix well.

  3. Bake at 350°F (175°C) for 1½ hours.

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. Nutmeg + peppertop 7% of all pairs
    Smell alikestrong
    Cooked together13,015 recipes

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

  3. Potato + nutmegtop 8% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together1,052 recipes

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

  4. Potato + peppertop 9% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together8,305 recipes

    Shared aroma: 2-isopropyl-3-methoxypyrazine (earthy, pea).

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

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

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

What each ingredient does

Eggs
Bind the batter and set into a firm, sliceable custard when baked.
Allinson fine wheatmeal
Forms the batter body that thickens and holds the pie together as it bakes.
Milk
Hydrates the flour and eggs to form a pourable batter that bakes into a soft custard.
Potatoes
Add starchy bulk and body, helping the pie hold its shape when sliced.

The step that matters

Pour the batter over the vegetables and mix well. The batter must be evenly distributed so the eggs and flour set throughout the pie. Unevenly mixed batter can leave dry pockets or a runny, under-set custard around the vegetables.

Swap the cauliflower

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

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

Fit is the average pairing score against potato, egg, milk, butter, nutmeg, pepper. 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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