Name: To Dress Cauliflowers
Ingredients: 1 cauliflower; water; milk; salt; plain melted butter

Why it works: Milk and butter are a kitchen classic. They rank in the top 7% of all ingredient pairs, and cooks put them together in 81,283 recipes. Both carry (z)-4-heptenal, which smells biscuit, cream. The science ↓

To Dress Cauliflowers

Ingredients

Directions

Separate the green part of the cauliflower and cut the flower close to the bottom from the stalk.
Soak the cauliflower in clear cold water for 1 hour.
In a pot, bring water and milk to a boil (or use water alone).
Skim the boiling liquid well.
When the flower or stalks feel tender, remove the cauliflower immediately.
Drain for 1 minute and serve in a dish with plain melted butter in a sauce-tureen.

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.

Milk + buttertop 7% of all pairs

Smell alikemoderate

Cooked together81,283 recipes

Shared aroma: (z)-4-heptenal (biscuit, cream).
Cauliflower + milktop 20% of all pairs

Smell alikemoderate

Cooked together314 recipes

Shared aroma: 1-octen-3-one (mushroom, metallic).
Cauliflower + buttertop 23% of all pairs

Smell alikemoderate

Cooked together823 recipes

Shared aroma: 2,3-pentanedione (butter, sweet).