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Cauliflower Soup

A simple cauliflower soup made with butter, herbs, onion, and broth, finished with croutons.

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

Why it works: Thyme and parsley match in chemistry and in kitchens. They rank in the top 1% of all ingredient pairs, and cooks put them together in 9,057 recipes. Both carry cuminaldehyde, which smells Spicy, cumin. The science ↓

Cauliflower Soup

Ingredients

Directions

Prepare

  1. Cut the cauliflower into small pieces.

  2. Melt the butter in a saucepan over medium heat.

Cook the soup

  1. Add the cauliflower and stir occasionally until browned.

  2. Add thyme, parsley, bay leaf, onion with clove, salt, and white pepper.

  3. Simmer gently until cooked through.

  4. Remove the onion, clove, thyme, and bay leaf.

  5. Mash the cauliflower and strain it back into the pot with the broth.

  6. Bring to a boil and serve with croutons.

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. Thyme + parsleytop 1% of all pairs
    Smell alikestrong
    Cooked together9,057 recipes

    Shared aroma: cuminaldehyde (Spicy, cumin).

  2. Thyme + clovetop 2% of all pairs
    Smell alikestrong
    Cooked together4,108 recipes

    Shared aroma: cuminaldehyde (Spicy, cumin).

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

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

  4. Parsley + clovetop 6% of all pairs
    Smell alikestrong
    Cooked together6,768 recipes

    Shared aroma: cuminaldehyde (Spicy, cumin).

  5. Thyme + oniontop 7% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together11,171 recipes

    Shared aroma: coumarin (sweet, hay).

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

What each ingredient does

Cauliflower
Forms the body of the soup and, once mashed, gives it a thick, smooth texture.
Butter
Adds fat and richness, and helps the cauliflower brown in the pan.
Onion
Adds savory aroma and sweetness as it softens into the soup base.
Broth
Supplies the liquid that turns the mashed cauliflower into a soup.

The step that matters

Add the cauliflower and stir occasionally until browned.. Browning develops deeper, roasted flavors through the Maillard reaction. Cooking too hot or stirring constantly can scorch the butter and pieces instead of browning them evenly.

Swap the white pepper

How well each one fits the dish's main ingredients (cauliflower, butter, thyme, parsley, onion, clove):

  1. Marjoramfits better
  2. Allspicefits better
  3. Winter savoryfits better
  4. White pepperthe original

Fit is the average pairing score against cauliflower, butter, thyme, parsley, onion, clove. 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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