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Cauliflower with Sauce

Cauliflower boiled and served with a sauce of butter, lemon juice, and French mustard.

From an old cookbook · modernised transcription
From a historical cookbook (Internet Archive) · 5 ingredients
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Why it works: Cauliflower and mustard match in chemistry and in kitchens. They rank in the top 1% of all ingredient pairs, and cooks put them together in 687 recipes. Both carry trans-2-hexenal, which smells green, leafy. The science ↓

Cauliflower with Sauce

Ingredients

Directions

Cook the cauliflower

  1. Boil the cauliflower tied in netting in hot salted water for 25 to 30 minutes.

  2. Drain the cauliflower and serve it in a deep dish with the flower side up.

Make the sauce and serve

  1. Stir the lemon juice and French mustard into the drawn butter.

  2. Pour the butter sauce over the cauliflower.

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 + mustardtop 1% of all pairs
    Smell alikestrong
    Cooked together687 recipes

    Shared aroma: trans-2-hexenal (green, leafy).

  2. Cauliflower + lemontop 9% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together179 recipes

    Shared aroma: decanal (soap, orange peel).

  3. Lemon + mustardtop 11% of all pairs
    Smell alikestrong
    Cooked together3,816 recipes

    Shared aroma: eucalyptol (eucalyptus, herbal).

  4. Butter + lemontop 16% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together41,227 recipes

    Shared aroma: 3-hexenal (apple, fruity).

  5. Butter + mustardtop 22% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together8,003 recipes

    Shared aroma: guaiacol (smoky, sweet).

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

What each ingredient does

Cauliflower
The main vegetable; boiling softens it while the florets keep their shape.
Drawn butter
Adds richness and a smooth fat that coats the cauliflower and carries flavour.
Lemon juice
Adds acidity that brightens the rich butter and balances its richness.
French mustard
Adds sharpness and helps hold the butter and lemon juice together as a smoother sauce.

The step that matters

Boil the cauliflower for 25 to 30 minutes. Boiling too long breaks down the cell walls, leaving the florets soft and mushy. Checking for tenderness at the start of the window keeps the cauliflower firm enough to hold its shape in the dish.

Swap the lemon

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

  1. Lemonthe original
  2. Limefits about as well
  3. Avocadofits less well
  4. Coconutfits less well

Fit is the average pairing score against cauliflower, butter, mustard. 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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