Name: Cauliflower, with Butter Sauce
Ingredients: 1 head cauliflower; water (enough to cover cauliflower); ¼ teaspoon coarse sea salt; 2 tablespoons milk; 1 tablespoon butter

Why it works: Milk and butter are a kitchen classic. They rank in the top 7% of all ingredient pairs, and cooks put them together in 81,283 recipes. Both carry (z)-4-heptenal, which smells biscuit, cream. The science ↓

Cauliflower, with Butter Sauce

Ingredients

Directions

Wash and trim the cauliflower.
Place the cauliflower in a saucepan and cover with water.
Add salt when the water boils.
Cook slowly, adding milk and butter.
Once cooked, drain on a napkin, being careful not to break the flowered buds.
Serve on a napkin with butter sauce on the side.

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.

Milk + buttertop 7% of all pairs

Smell alikemoderate

Cooked together81,283 recipes

Shared aroma: (z)-4-heptenal (biscuit, cream).
Cauliflower + milktop 20% of all pairs

Smell alikemoderate

Cooked together314 recipes

Shared aroma: 1-octen-3-one (mushroom, metallic).
Cauliflower + buttertop 23% of all pairs

Smell alikemoderate

Cooked together823 recipes

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