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Preserve

To Cook Cauliflowers

A method for boiling cauliflower in salted water with vinegar, borax, and sugar.

From an old cookbook · modernised transcription
From a historical cookbook (Internet Archive) · 6 ingredients
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Why it works: Cauliflower and vinegar work together. They rank in the top 13% of all ingredient pairs, and cooks put them together in 888 recipes. Both carry 4'-methylacetophenone, which smells bitter almond. The science ↓

To Cook Cauliflowers

Ingredients

Directions

Prepare

  1. Wash the cauliflower thoroughly.

  2. Soak the cauliflower in water with salt and vinegar to remove insects.

  3. Blanch the cauliflower.

  4. Place the cauliflower in cold water to cool.

  5. Drain the cauliflower.

Boil

  1. Plunge the cauliflower, flower side down, into a saucepan of boiling salted water with borax and sugar.

  2. Keep the water boiling steadily without covering the pan.

  3. Remove any scum that forms.

Drain and serve

  1. Place the cauliflower on a clean cloth in a colander. Cover it.

  2. Let it drain near the fire 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.

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 + vinegartop 13% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together888 recipes

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

  2. Vinegar + sugartop 15% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together20,806 recipes

    Shared aroma: beta-damascenone (apple, rose).

  3. Cauliflower + sugartop 29% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together497 recipes

    Shared aroma: 1-penten-3-one (fish, pungent).

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

What each ingredient does

Cauliflower
Is the main vegetable that is cooked until tender and served.
Sugar
Adds a little sweetness to the boiling water, balancing any bitterness.
Vinegar
Adds acidity to the soaking water, helping loosen insects from the florets.

The step that matters

Keep the water boiling steadily without covering the pan. A steady boil keeps the water at a constant high temperature so the cauliflower cooks evenly and quickly. Covering the pan traps the strong-smelling sulfur compounds released during cooking, which makes the vegetable smell and taste more unpleasant.

Swap the cauliflower

How well each one fits the dish's main ingredients (vinegar, sugar):

  1. Mustardfits better
  2. Capsicumfits better
  3. Cucumberfits better
  4. Cauliflowerthe original

Fit is the average pairing score against vinegar, sugar. 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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