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Cauliflower Soup

A creamy soup made from boiled cauliflower, milk, water, cheese, butter or cream, seasoned with salt and pepper.

From an old cookbook · modernised transcription
From a historical cookbook (Internet Archive) · 7 ingredients
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Cauliflower Soup

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 ↓

Cauliflower Soup

Ingredients

Directions

Prepare the soup

  1. Scald the cauliflower in boiling water with a little salt for a few minutes.

  2. Drain the cauliflower and boil it in milk and water until fully cooked.

  3. Pass the mixture through a fine sieve.

Finish and serve

  1. Return the mixture to the heat, add cheese, butter or cream, and season with salt and pepper.

  2. Simmer together and serve with fried bread slices.

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. Milk + buttertop 7% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together81,283 recipes

    Shared aroma: (z)-4-heptenal (biscuit, cream).

  2. Cauliflower + peppertop 9% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together1,113 recipes

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

  3. Gruyere cheese + buttertop 9% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together323 recipes

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

  4. Milk + gruyere cheesetop 13% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together130 recipes

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

  5. Cauliflower + milktop 20% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together314 recipes

    Shared aroma: 1-octen-3-one (mushroom, metallic).

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 thickens it as it breaks down when cooked and sieved.
Milk
Adds creaminess and a smooth, rich texture to the soup.
Parmesan or gruyere cheese
Adds savoury depth and richness, and helps give the soup a fuller body.
Butter or cream
Adds fat for a silkier mouthfeel and rounder flavour.

The step that matters

Pass the mixture through a fine sieve. Sieving breaks down the fibres of the fully cooked cauliflower, producing a smooth texture. Skipping or rushing this leaves the soup grainy or stringy.

Swap the cauliflower

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

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

Fit is the average pairing score against milk, gruyere cheese, butter, pepper. 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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