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Cauliflower in White Sauce

A cauliflower dish simmered in broth and white sauce.

From an old cookbook · modernised transcription
From a historical cookbook (Internet Archive) · 8 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 ↓

Cauliflower in White Sauce

Ingredients

Directions

Prepare the cauliflower

  1. Half boil the cauliflower, then cut it into pieces.

Make the sauce

  1. Place the pieces in a stew pan with broth, mace, salt, and white pepper.

  2. Simmer for 30 minutes.

  3. Add cream, butter, and flour; shake and simmer for a few more minutes.

Serve

  1. Serve hot.

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. Mace + white peppertop 9% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together1,695 recipes

    Shared aroma: myrcene (balsamic, herbaceous).

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

    Shared aroma: isobutyraldehyde (malty, green).

  4. Butter + flourtop 12% of all pairs
    Smell alikelow
    Cooked together124,287 recipes

    Shared aroma: isobutyraldehyde (malty, green).

  5. Mace + creamtop 18% of all pairs
    Smell alikelow
    Cooked together4,009 recipes

Butter and flour barely smell alike, yet cooks put them together in 124,287 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
Provides the main body of the dish and absorbs the sauce as it simmers.
Butter
Adds richness and fat that carries flavour and gives the sauce a smooth mouthfeel.
Flour
Thickens the broth and cream into a smooth white sauce as it simmers.
Cream
Adds body and richness, helping the sauce coat the cauliflower.
Broth
Supplies the liquid base that the flour thickens and that carries the seasoning.

The step that matters

Add the flour, butter and cream, then shake and simmer. Flour needs heat and liquid to swell and thicken; if it is not kept moving and simmered long enough, it can clump or leave a raw floury taste in the sauce.

Swap the white pepper

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

  1. Nutmegfits better
  2. Turmericfits better
  3. Cinnamonfits better
  4. White pepperthe original

Fit is the average pairing score against cauliflower, mace, cream, butter, flour. 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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