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Cauliflower in White Sauce

A dish of cauliflower simmered in broth and finished with a creamy white sauce.

From an old cookbook · modernised transcription
From a historical cookbook (Internet Archive) · 6 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 in White Sauce

Ingredients

Directions

Cook the cauliflower

  1. Half boil the cauliflower, then cut it into pieces.

  2. Place the pieces in a stewpan with the broth and salt.

  3. Simmer for 30 minutes.

Make the sauce

  1. In a separate bowl, mix the cream, butter, and flour.

  2. Add the cream mixture to the stewpan and stir well.

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 + flourtop 12% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together569 recipes

    Shared aroma: isobutyraldehyde (malty, green).

  3. Butter + flourtop 12% of all pairs
    Smell alikelow
    Cooked together124,287 recipes

    Shared aroma: isobutyraldehyde (malty, green).

  4. Cream + flourtop 20% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together30,481 recipes

    Shared aroma: acetaldehyde (pungent, ethereal).

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

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

Butter and flour barely smell alike, yet cooks put them together in 124,287 recipes: they work on texture and structure more than aroma.

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 softens as it simmers in the liquid.
Broth
Provides the cooking liquid and savory flavor for the cauliflower.
Cream
Adds richness and body to the sauce.
Butter
Adds fat for a smooth, rich mouthfeel.
Flour
Thickens the sauce as it is stirred into the hot liquid.

The step that matters

Stirring the cream mixture into the stewpan. Flour thickens sauces only when it is evenly dispersed. Stirring well as the mixture is added helps prevent lumps and gives a smooth, consistent white sauce.

Swap the cauliflower

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

  1. Leekfits better
  2. Arrowrootfits better
  3. Chivefits better
  4. Cauliflowerthe original

Fit is the average pairing score against cream, butter, flour. 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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