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Cauliflower “ Au Gratin.”

A baked cauliflower dish topped with melted butter, Gruyere and Parmesan cheese, breadcrumbs, and baked until golden.

From an old cookbook · modernised transcription
From a historical cookbook (Internet Archive) · 6 ingredients
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Why it works: Gruyere cheese and parmesan cheese match in chemistry and in kitchens. They rank in the top 1% of all ingredient pairs, and cooks put them together in 152 recipes. Both carry ethyl 2-methylbutyrate, which smells fruity, apple. The science ↓

Cauliflower “ Au Gratin.”

Ingredients

Directions

The book gives no oven temperature. The 350°F (175°C) in the steps was added when the recipe was transcribed, as a starting point.

Prepare

  1. Boil the cauliflower until tender, about two-thirds cooked.

  2. Divide the cauliflower into branches.

Assemble

  1. In a bowl, mix melted butter with Gruyere and Parmesan cheese.

  2. Layer half of the cauliflower in a baking dish, cover with half of the cheese sauce.

  3. Add the remaining cauliflower and top with the rest of the sauce.

  4. Sprinkle with bread crumbs and pour a little melted butter on top.

Bake and serve

  1. Bake at 350°F (175°C) until golden brown.

  2. Serve immediately.

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. Gruyere cheese + parmesan cheesetop 1% of all pairs
    Smell alikestrong
    Cooked together152 recipes

    Shared aroma: ethyl 2-methylbutyrate (fruity, apple).

  2. Butter + breadtop 7% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together27,232 recipes

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

  3. Butter + parmesan cheesetop 9% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together4,163 recipes

    Shared aroma: guaiacol (smoky, sweet).

  4. Butter + gruyere cheesetop 9% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together323 recipes

    Shared aroma: gamma-decalactone (peach, creamy).

  5. Parmesan cheese + breadtop 15% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together577 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 bulk of the dish and becomes tender when boiled and then baked.
Gruyere cheese
Melts into the sauce and adds rich, savory flavor and creaminess.
Parmesan cheese
Adds sharp, salty flavor and helps the topping brown as it bakes.
Melted butter
Carries fat into the sauce and helps the bread crumbs turn golden and crisp.
Bread crumbs
Form a crisp, browned topping over the cheese sauce.

The step that matters

Bake until golden brown. The cauliflower is already partly cooked, so baking mainly melts the cheese and browns the crumb topping. Stopping too early leaves the sauce loose and the top pale, while overbaking can dry the cheese and toughen the crumbs.

Swap the cauliflower

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

  1. Tomatofits better
  2. Potatofits better
  3. Asparagusfits better
  4. Cauliflowerthe original

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