Name: Cauliflower Au Gratin
Ingredients: 1 cooked cauliflower; butter for greasing; bechamel sauce; coarse sea salt; black pepper; grated Gruyere cheese; bread crumbs; small bits of butter

Why it works: Butter and bread are a kitchen classic. They rank in the top 7% of all ingredient pairs, and cooks put them together in 27,232 recipes. Both carry delta-decalactone, which smells sweet, creamy. The science ↓

Cauliflower Au Gratin

Ingredients

Directions

The book gives no oven temperature. The 400°F (200°C) in the steps was added when the recipe was transcribed, as a starting point.

Break the cooked cauliflower into sprays.
Press the cauliflower into a small bowl to shape it.
Butter a round gratin dish and place the shaped cauliflower in it.
Cover the cauliflower with a thick layer of cold bechamel sauce.
Season with coarse sea salt and black pepper.
Strew grated Gruyere cheese and bread crumbs thickly over the top.
Dot with small bits of butter.
Bake in a 400°F (200°C) oven until light 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.

Butter + breadtop 7% of all pairs

Smell alikemoderate

Cooked together27,232 recipes

Shared aroma: delta-decalactone (sweet, creamy).
Cauliflower + peppertop 9% of all pairs

Smell alikemoderate

Cooked together1,113 recipes

Shared aroma: 4'-methylacetophenone (bitter almond).
Butter + gruyere cheesetop 9% of all pairs

Smell alikemoderate

Cooked together323 recipes

Shared aroma: gamma-decalactone (peach, creamy).
Butter + saucetop 15% of all pairs

Smell alikelow

Cooked together15,338 recipes

Shared aroma: ethanol (alcoholic, ethereal).
Gruyere cheese + breadtop 15% of all pairs

Smell alikemoderate

Cooked together38 recipes

Shared aroma: ethyl caproate (fruity, apple peel).

Butter and sauce barely smell alike, yet cooks put them together in 15,338 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

Swap the cauliflower

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

Capsicumfits better
Tomatofits better
Potatofits better
Cauliflowerthe original

Fit is the average pairing score against butter, sauce, pepper, gruyere cheese, bread. Candidates are from the same food group and used in at least 100 recipes.