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Cauliflowers with Parmesan Cheese

A baked dish of cauliflower topped with white sauce, Parmesan cheese, clarified butter, and browned breadcrumbs.

From an old cookbook · modernised transcription
From a historical cookbook (Internet Archive) · 5 ingredients
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Why it works: Butter and bread 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 ↓

Cauliflowers with Parmesan Cheese

Ingredients

Directions

Prepare the cauliflower

  1. Remove all green leaves and cut the stalks of the cauliflower closely.

  2. Boil the cauliflower until tender but not breaking.

  3. Drain the cauliflower and arrange them upright in a serving dish.

Assemble and brown

  1. Pour a little white sauce over the tops of the cauliflower.

  2. Sprinkle grated Parmesan cheese on top, then drizzle with clarified butter.

  3. Add another layer of Parmesan cheese and cover with fine bread crumbs.

  4. Moisten the bread crumbs with more clarified butter and brown them.

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

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

  2. Parmesan cheese + buttertop 9% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together4,163 recipes

    Shared aroma: guaiacol (smoky, sweet).

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

    Shared aroma: ethanol (alcoholic, ethereal).

  4. Parmesan cheese + breadtop 15% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together577 recipes

    Shared aroma: guaiacol (smoky, sweet).

  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 and becomes tender when boiled.
White sauce
Adds moisture and creaminess over the cauliflower tops.
Parmesan cheese
Melts and browns, adding savory, salty flavor to the top.
Clarified butter
Adds fat that helps the bread crumbs brown evenly and richly.
Fine bread crumbs
Form a crisp, golden crust on top when browned.

The step that matters

Boil the cauliflower until tender but not breaking. Overcooking makes cauliflower waterlogged and mushy, while undercooking leaves it firm and hard to serve upright. Stopping at tender keeps the florets intact and holds their shape under the sauce and crumbs.

Swap the cauliflower

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

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

Fit is the average pairing score against sauce, parmesan cheese, butter, 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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