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Cauliflower Au Gratin

A baked cauliflower dish topped with cheese, breadcrumbs, and clarified fat.

From an old cookbook · modernised transcription
From a historical cookbook (Internet Archive) · 7 ingredients
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Why it works: Pepper and celery match in chemistry and in kitchens. They rank in the top 5% of all ingredient pairs, and cooks put them together in 16,012 recipes. Both carry 4'-methylacetophenone, which smells bitter almond. The science ↓

Cauliflower Au Gratin

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 by dividing it into sprigs and drying them with a cloth.

  2. Dip each sprig into melted clarified fat and arrange them in a baking dish to form the original shape.

Assemble

  1. Pour a little more fat over the cauliflower and cover it thickly with grated cheese.

  2. Season with nutmeg, salt, pepper, and celery salt if using.

  3. Cover with a layer of browned bread crumbs about ¼ inch thick.

  4. Drizzle a little more fat over the crumbs.

Bake and serve

  1. Bake at 400°F (200°C) until golden brown.

  2. Serve immediately.

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. Pepper + celerytop 5% of all pairs
    Smell alikestrong
    Cooked together16,012 recipes

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

  2. Cauliflower + celerytop 6% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together488 recipes

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

  3. Cheese + breadtop 7% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together2,130 recipes

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

  4. Pepper + nutmegtop 7% of all pairs
    Smell alikestrong
    Cooked together13,015 recipes

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

  5. Nutmeg + celerytop 7% of all pairs
    Smell alikestrong
    Cooked together1,331 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

Cauliflower
Forms the main body of the dish, becoming tender as it bakes.
Clarified fat
Carries seasoning and promotes browning on the surface of the crumbs and cauliflower.
Grated cheese
Melts over the cauliflower and browns to form a rich, savory crust.
Bread crumbs
Form a crisp, golden topping that adds texture contrast to the soft cauliflower.

The step that matters

Browning the bread crumbs. The crumbs must be browned before they go on, because baking only briefly in the oven may not color them evenly. Drizzling fat over them helps them crisp and turn golden rather than dry or pale.

Swap the celery

The recipe marks celery as optional. How well each one fits the dish's main ingredients (cauliflower, cheese, pepper, nutmeg, bread):

  1. Parsleyfits better
  2. Cinnamonfits better
  3. Clovefits better
  4. Celerythe original

Fit is the average pairing score against cauliflower, cheese, pepper, nutmeg, bread. 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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