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Cauliflower Sauce

A creamy sauce made from boiled cauliflower, onion, celery, butter, flour, and milk or cream.

From an old cookbook · modernised transcription
From a historical cookbook (Internet Archive) · 10 ingredients
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Why it works: Celery and pepper match in chemistry and in kitchens. They rank in the top 5% of all ingredient pairs, and cooks put them together in 16,012 recipes. Both carry 4'-methylacetophenone, which smells bitter almond. The science ↓

Cauliflower Sauce

Ingredients

Directions

Prepare the vegetables

  1. Boil the cauliflower in two waters, changing when half done and discarding the first water.

  2. Reserve 1 teacup of the last water, then drain and mince the cauliflower.

  3. Mince the onion and celery, then cook them in another saucepan until tender.

Make the sauce

  1. Heat the reserved cup of water in a saucepan and add the milk.

  2. When warm, add the cauliflower, onion, butter, and seasoning.

  3. Coat the butter thickly with flour.

  4. Boil until the sauce thickens.

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. Celery + peppertop 5% of all pairs
    Smell alikestrong
    Cooked together16,012 recipes

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

  2. Cauliflower + celerytop 6% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together488 recipes

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

  3. Butter + milktop 7% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together81,283 recipes

    Shared aroma: (z)-4-heptenal (biscuit, cream).

  4. Onion + celerytop 7% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together18,518 recipes

    Shared aroma: guaiacol (smoky, sweet).

  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

Cauliflower
Forms the body of the sauce once minced, giving it substance and a mild vegetable flavour.
Butter
Carries flavour and, with flour, forms the base that thickens the sauce.
Flour
Coats the butter and thickens the liquid as it boils, giving the sauce body.
Milk or cream
Adds richness and softness, rounding out the sauce's texture and taste.
Onion
Adds savoury aroma and depth of flavour to the sauce.

The step that matters

Boil until the sauce thickens. Flour thickens only when the starch granules swell in boiling liquid, so the sauce must be boiled long enough, with constant stirring, to avoid lumps and a thin, floury result.

Swap the mace

How well each one fits the dish's main ingredients (cauliflower, butter, flour, onion, celery, pepper, milk):

  1. Turmericfits better
  2. Parsleyfits better
  3. Capersfits better
  4. Macethe original

Fit is the average pairing score against cauliflower, butter, flour, onion, celery, pepper, milk. 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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