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Boiled Cauliflower

A boiled cauliflower served whole, plain or with melted butter.

From an old cookbook · modernised transcription
From a historical cookbook (Internet Archive) · 4 ingredients
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Why it works: Cauliflower and butter work together. They rank in the top 23% of all ingredient pairs, and cooks put them together in 823 recipes. Both carry 2,3-pentanedione, which smells butter, sweet. The science ↓

Boiled Cauliflower

Ingredients

Directions

Prepare

  1. Fill a pot with water and add salt.

  2. Bring the water to a boil.

  3. Trim the cauliflower stalk, cutting it only twice.

  4. Place the cauliflower flower side down in the boiling water.

Cook and serve

  1. Skim the water to keep it clear.

  2. Cook for 15 to 20 minutes until tender.

  3. Serve whole, plain or with melted butter.

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. Cauliflower + buttertop 23% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together823 recipes

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

Ranks compare each pair with 20,000 random ingredient pairs on CompKitchen. How we score pairs

What each ingredient does

Cauliflower
Is the whole vegetable that softens into a tender, mild-flavoured dish when boiled.
Butter
Adds richness and a silky fat coating to the mild, boiled flavour.

The step that matters

Cook until tender, not longer. Cauliflower goes from tender to mushy and sulfurous if overcooked. Checking for tenderness at the lower end of the time keeps its texture firm and its flavour fresh.

“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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