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Cauliflowers, with Parmesan Cheese

A baked cauliflower dish topped with a béchamel‑based Parmesan sauce.

From an old cookbook · modernised transcription
From a historical cookbook (Internet Archive) · 10 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 and cook the cauliflowers as directed.

Make the sauce

  1. In a saucepan, combine the béchamel or veloute sauce, Parmesan cheese, butter, egg yolks, glaze, lemon juice, nutmeg, pepper, and salt.

  2. Stir the mixture over low heat until well combined, without boiling.

Bake and serve

  1. Pour the sauce over the cauliflowers to coat them completely.

  2. Smooth the top with a knife and sprinkle with additional grated Parmesan cheese.

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

  4. Arrange croutons around the base before serving to prevent spreading.

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. Butter + breadtop 7% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together27,232 recipes

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

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

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

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

Egg yolks
Bind the sauce and enrich it, helping it set smoothly when baked.
Parmesan cheese
Adds savoury flavour and browns on top in the oven.
Butter
Adds fat for richness and a smooth, silky texture.
Béchamel or veloute sauce
Forms the creamy base that coats the cauliflower.

The step that matters

Stir over low heat without boiling. Egg yolks thicken when gently heated but curdle if they boil, which would leave the sauce grainy instead of smooth and creamy.

“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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