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Cream of Cauliflower Soup

A creamy soup made with cauliflower, stock, butter, flour, milk, and cream, seasoned with salt and pepper.

From an old cookbook · modernised transcription
From a historical cookbook (Internet Archive) · 11 ingredients
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Cream of Cauliflower Soup

Why it works: Parsley and celery match in chemistry and in kitchens. They rank in the top 1% of all ingredient pairs, and cooks put them together in 6,810 recipes. Both carry 4'-methylacetophenone, which smells bitter almond. The science ↓

Cream of Cauliflower Soup

Ingredients

Directions

Prepare the cauliflower

  1. Soak the cauliflower in cold salted water, head down, for 1 hour to remove insects.

  2. In a pot, boil the stock or hot water with the onion, parsley, and celery.

  3. Once tender, mash the cauliflower through a sieve or potato ricer.

Make the soup

  1. In a separate saucepan, melt the butter, then stir in the flour and cook for 1 minute.

  2. Gradually add the milk, salt, and pepper, cooking for 10 minutes until thickened.

  3. Stir in the cauliflower pulp and cook for an additional 5 minutes.

  4. Add the cream and mix well before serving.

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.

Photo for illustrative purposes only · Contact us to use it

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. Parsley + celerytop 1% of all pairs
    Smell alikestrong
    Cooked together6,810 recipes

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

  2. Cauliflower + parsleytop 5% of all pairs
    Smell alikestrong
    Cooked together233 recipes

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

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

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

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

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

  5. Onion + celerytop 7% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together18,518 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
Forms the main body of the soup and gives it a thick, smooth texture when mashed.
Butter
Provides fat and rich flavour as the base for the roux.
Flour
Thickens the milk into a smooth white sauce when cooked with butter.
Milk
Forms the creamy liquid that thickens with the roux and gives body to the soup.
Cream
Adds richness and a silky mouthfeel at the end of cooking.

The step that matters

Gradually add the milk to the roux. Adding cold milk all at once to the hot butter and flour can cause lumps. Adding it slowly while stirring lets the starch disperse evenly, giving a smooth sauce as it thickens.

Swap the cauliflower

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

  1. Potatofits better
  2. Leekfits better
  3. Carrotfits better
  4. Cauliflowerthe original

Fit is the average pairing score against chicken, onion, parsley, celery, butter, flour, 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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