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Cauliflower with Cheese

A baked cauliflower dish topped with a creamy cheese sauce.

From an old cookbook · modernised transcription
From a historical cookbook (Internet Archive) · 8 ingredients
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Why it works: Butter and milk 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 with Cheese

Ingredients

Directions

The book gives no oven temperature. The 400°F (200°C) in the steps was added when the recipe was transcribed, as a starting point.

Prepare

  1. Blanch cauliflower in boiling water for 5 minutes, then transfer to cold water until ready to cook.

  2. Boil cauliflower in salted water until tender, about 20 minutes. Drain and press lightly with a clean cloth to remove excess water.

Make the sauce

  1. In an enamelled saucepan, mix butter, flour, milk, cayenne, and cream. Stir over low heat for 5 minutes.

  2. Add the grated cheese to the sauce and stir until melted.

Bake and serve

  1. Pour the cheese sauce over the cauliflower and bake in a 400°F (200°C) oven until golden.

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 + milktop 7% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together81,283 recipes

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

  2. Butter + creamtop 8% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together41,516 recipes

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

  3. Butter + parmesan cheesetop 9% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together4,163 recipes

    Shared aroma: guaiacol (smoky, sweet).

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

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

  5. Cauliflower + flourtop 12% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together569 recipes

    Shared aroma: isobutyraldehyde (malty, green).

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 softens into a tender base for the sauce.
Butter
Adds richness and fat that carries flavour and helps the sauce feel smooth.
Flour
Its starch swells in warm milk and thickens the sauce so it clings to the cauliflower.
Milk
Forms the liquid base of the sauce, which thickens as the flour cooks.
Parmesan cheese
Adds savoury, salty flavour and melts into the sauce, browning on top in the oven.
Cream
Adds richness and a silkier texture to the sauce.

The step that matters

Thickening the sauce over low heat. Flour starch only thickens fully when heated gently while stirred. Stirring prevents lumps and scorching, and the sauce needs enough heat to thicken properly before the cheese goes in.

Swap the cauliflower

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

  1. Potatofits better
  2. Spinachfits better
  3. Asparagusfits better
  4. Cauliflowerthe original

Fit is the average pairing score against butter, flour, milk, parmesan cheese, pepper, cream. 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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