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Cauliflowers, with Parmesan Cheese

A baked cauliflower topped with a béchamel‑parmesan sauce and finished with grated cheese.

From an old cookbook · modernised transcription
From a historical cookbook (Internet Archive) · 11 ingredients
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Why it works: Lemon and pepper match in chemistry and in kitchens. They rank in the top 3% of all ingredient pairs, and cooks put them together in 27,047 recipes. Both carry trans-2-nonenal, which smells cardboard, fatty. The science ↓

Cauliflowers, with Parmesan 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. Prepare the cauliflower as directed.

  2. In a saucepan, combine the béchamel or velouté sauce, parmesan cheese, butter, egg yolks, glaze, lemon juice, nutmeg, pepper, and salt.

  3. Stir over low heat until well mixed, without boiling.

Assemble and bake

  1. Pour the mixture over the cauliflower to coat it completely.

  2. Smooth the top with a knife and sprinkle with more grated parmesan cheese.

  3. Bake in a 400°F (200°C) oven for about 15 minutes until golden brown.

Serve

  1. Arrange croutons around the base 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. Lemon + peppertop 3% of all pairs
    Smell alikestrong
    Cooked together27,047 recipes

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

  2. Lemon + nutmegtop 5% of all pairs
    Smell alikestrong
    Cooked together11,318 recipes

    Shared aroma: beta-phellandrene (minty, terpene).

  3. Nutmeg + peppertop 7% of all pairs
    Smell alikestrong
    Cooked together13,015 recipes

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

  4. Parmesan cheese + buttertop 9% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together4,163 recipes

    Shared aroma: guaiacol (smoky, sweet).

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

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

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

What each ingredient does

Egg yolks
Enrich the sauce and help it set into a creamy custard.
Parmesan cheese
Adds savoury flavour and browns on top of the bake.
Butter
Adds richness and a smooth, silky texture to the sauce.
Béchamel or velouté sauce
Forms the creamy base that coats the cauliflower and holds the topping together.

The step that matters

Stir over low heat without boiling. Egg yolks thicken the sauce gently, but if it boils they can scramble, leaving it grainy and preventing a smooth, set coating.

Swap the cauliflower

How well each one fits the dish's main ingredients (sauce, parmesan cheese, butter, egg, lemon, nutmeg, pepper):

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

Fit is the average pairing score against sauce, parmesan cheese, butter, egg, lemon, nutmeg, 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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