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Cauliflower Au Gratin

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

From an old cookbook · modernised transcription
From a historical cookbook (Internet Archive) · 6 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

Oven, in the book's wordsA sharp oven

Ingredients

Directions

The book says “a sharp oven”. The 400°F (200°C) in the steps is the modern equivalent, not the book's own figure.

Prepare the cauliflower

  1. Remove outer green leaves from cauliflower and wash thoroughly in cold water.

  2. Soak cauliflower in cold water with a little salt for about 20 minutes.

  3. Boil a saucepan of fast boiling water, add salt to taste, and simmer cauliflower for about 20 minutes until cooked.

  4. Drain cauliflower and place it in a hot vegetable dish.

Assemble and brown

  1. Add grated cheese to the white sauce and pour it over cauliflower.

  2. Sprinkle top with bread crumbs, grated cheese, and oiled butter.

  3. Brown dish in a 400°F (200°C) oven or under a grill.

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 bulk of the dish, providing the tender vegetable base under the sauce.
White sauce
Adds moisture and a creamy texture that coats the cauliflower.
Grated cheese
Melts into the sauce for richness and helps form a golden, savoury crust.
Bread crumbs
Create a crisp, browned topping that contrasts with the soft cauliflower.
Oiled butter
Adds fat that helps the topping brown evenly and adds flavour.

The step that matters

Draining the cauliflower well. Water left on the cauliflower thins the white sauce and makes the topping soggy, so it should be drained thoroughly before the sauce goes on.

Swap the cauliflower

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

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

Fit is the average pairing score against sauce, cheese, 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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