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Puree of Cauliflower a LA Creme

A creamy cauliflower puree made with cream, butter, salt, and pepper.

From an old cookbook · modernised transcription
From a historical cookbook (Internet Archive) · 5 ingredients
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Why it works: Cream and butter are a kitchen classic. They rank in the top 8% of all ingredient pairs, and cooks put them together in 41,516 recipes. Both carry delta-dodecalactone, which smells sweet, creamy. The science ↓

Puree of Cauliflower a LA Creme

Ingredients

Directions

Prepare the puree

  1. Cut the cauliflower into florets and steam until tender.

  2. In a blender, combine the steamed cauliflower, cream, salt, and pepper. Blend until smooth and creamy.

Finish and serve

  1. Melt the butter in a saucepan over low heat.

  2. Pour the puree into the saucepan and heat gently before serving.

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. Cream + buttertop 8% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together41,516 recipes

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

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

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

  3. Pepper + buttertop 21% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together85,593 recipes

    Shared aroma: trans-2-nonenal (cardboard, fatty).

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

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

  5. Cream + peppertop 23% of all pairs
    Smell alikelow
    Cooked together21,449 recipes

    Shared aroma: acetic acid (sour, vinegar).

Cream and pepper barely smell alike, yet cooks put them together in 21,449 recipes: they work on texture and structure more than aroma.

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 puree and gives it its body and mild flavour.
Cream
Adds richness and a smooth, silky texture to the blended puree.
Butter
Adds fat for richness and a glossy mouthfeel when melted into the puree.

The step that matters

Blend until smooth and creamy. Cauliflower fibres stay gritty unless broken down fully. Blending until smooth, and adding the cream while blending, gives an even, silky texture.

Swap the cauliflower

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

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

Fit is the average pairing score against cream, pepper, butter. 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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