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Cauliflower Au Gratin

A baked cauliflower dish topped with cheese, white sauce, breadcrumbs, and butter.

From an old cookbook · modernised transcription
From a historical cookbook (Internet Archive) · 5 ingredients
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Why it works: Bread and butter 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.

Prepare

  1. Boil the cauliflower until tender, then strain off the water.

  2. Place the cauliflower in a dish.

Top and bake

  1. Cover with grated cheese, white sauce, and fried bread crumbs.

  2. Add small pieces of butter on top.

  3. Bake at 400°F (200°C) until golden 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.

  1. Bread + buttertop 7% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together27,232 recipes

    Shared aroma: delta-decalactone (sweet, creamy).

  2. Cheese + breadtop 7% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together2,130 recipes

    Shared aroma: delta-decalactone (sweet, creamy).

  3. Cheese + buttertop 8% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together7,962 recipes

    Shared aroma: delta-dodecalactone (sweet, creamy).

  4. Sauce + buttertop 15% of all pairs
    Smell alikelow
    Cooked together15,338 recipes

    Shared aroma: ethanol (alcoholic, ethereal).

  5. Cauliflower + breadtop 16% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together223 recipes

    Shared aroma: decanal (soap, orange peel).

Sauce and butter 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

What each ingredient does

Cauliflower
Forms the tender vegetable base that the topping covers and bakes over.
Grated cheese
Melts into the sauce and browns on top, adding richness and savoury flavour.
White sauce
Adds moisture and a creamy texture that keeps the dish from drying out.
Fried bread crumbs
Creates a crisp layer on top that contrasts with the soft cauliflower beneath.
Butter
Adds fat that promotes browning and enriches the topping.

The step that matters

Bake at 400°F (200°C) until golden brown. Cauliflower must be fully tender before baking, and the topping needs enough heat to brown. Stop when the surface is golden, since prolonged baking dries the sauce and cheese.

Swap the cauliflower

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

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

Fit is the average pairing score against cheese, sauce, bread, butter. 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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