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Brocoli and Cauliflower

A boiled vegetable dish of broccoli and cauliflower served with melted butter, optionally seasoned with salt, sugar, and vinegar.

From an old cookbook · modernised transcription
From a historical cookbook (Internet Archive) · 6 ingredients
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Why it works: Broccoli and cauliflower match in chemistry and in kitchens. They rank in the top 1% of all ingredient pairs, and cooks put them together in 127 recipes. Both carry 4'-methylacetophenone, which smells bitter almond. The science ↓

Brocoli and Cauliflower

Ingredients

Directions

Prepare

  1. Choose compact broccoli and cauliflower, 5 to 8 inches in diameter.

  2. Remove outer leaves and trim the tops of the inner leaves.

  3. Cut the bottom and pare away the outer husky skin.

  4. Wash the vegetables.

  5. Soak them head down in cold salted water.

Cook and serve

  1. Boil in plenty of salted water for 10 to 20 minutes until stalks are tender.

  2. If heads vary in size, add larger ones first.

  3. Serve with melted butter, optionally mixed with a little vinegar.

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. Broccoli + cauliflowertop 1% of all pairs
    Smell alikestrong
    Cooked together127 recipes

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

  2. Cauliflower + vinegartop 13% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together888 recipes

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

  3. Broccoli + vinegartop 13% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together1,286 recipes

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

  4. Sugar + vinegartop 15% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together20,806 recipes

    Shared aroma: beta-damascenone (apple, rose).

  5. Sugar + buttertop 17% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together98,233 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

Broccoli
Forms the main body of the dish, becoming tender and mildly sweet when boiled.
Cauliflower
Forms the main body of the dish, becoming tender and mildly sweet when boiled.
Butter
Adds richness and fat, carrying flavour over the cooked vegetables.

The step that matters

Boil until stalks are tender. Stalks cook more slowly than florets. Stopping too early leaves them firm and raw-tasting, while overcooking turns the florets soft and waterlogged. Adding larger heads first gives them the extra time they need.

Swap the broccoli

How well each one fits the dish's main ingredients (cauliflower, sugar, butter, vinegar):

  1. Mustardfits better
  2. Cucumberfits better
  3. Radishfits better
  4. Broccolithe original

Fit is the average pairing score against cauliflower, sugar, butter, vinegar. 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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