Skip to main content
Main

Cauliflowers a LA Fran^aise

Cauliflower cooked in boiling water with butter, salt, lemon, and melted butter topping.

From an old cookbook · modernised transcription
From a historical cookbook (Internet Archive) · 6 ingredients
Jump to recipe ↓

Why it works: Cauliflower and lemon work together. They rank in the top 9% of all ingredient pairs, and cooks put them together in 179 recipes. Both carry decanal, which smells soap, orange peel. The science ↓

Cauliflowers a LA Fran^aise

Ingredients

Directions

Prepare

  1. Strip away all the green leaves from the cauliflower.

  2. Divide the cauliflower into three or four parts, trimming the stalks close.

Cook

  1. Place the cauliflower parts, heads down, in a stewpan half filled with boiling water.

  2. Add the butter and salt.

  3. Cook until tender, about 12 to 18 minutes.

  4. Drain the water.

Arrange and serve

  1. Invert the stewpan over a dish to arrange the cauliflower neatly in the shape of one large head.

  2. Cover the cauliflower with melted butter mixed with lemon juice.

  3. 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. Cauliflower + lemontop 9% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together179 recipes

    Shared aroma: decanal (soap, orange peel).

  2. Butter + lemontop 16% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together41,227 recipes

    Shared aroma: 3-hexenal (apple, fruity).

  3. Cauliflower + buttertop 23% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together823 recipes

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

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, cooking to a tender texture while holding its shape.
Good butter
Adds richness and a rounded, savoury flavour to the cooking water and the finished dish.
Melted butter
Coats the cauliflower, adding moisture and a glossy finish with rich flavour.
Lemon juice
Adds acidity that brightens the buttery flavour and balances its richness.

The step that matters

Cook until tender, about 12 to 18 minutes. Cauliflower cooked too briefly stays firm and grassy, while overcooking makes it soft and watery. Checking tenderness with a knife tip at the early end of the range helps the florets hold their shape.

Swap the cauliflower

How well each one fits the dish's main ingredients (butter, lemon):

  1. Shallotfits better
  2. Asparagusfits better
  3. Leekfits better
  4. Cauliflowerthe original

Fit is the average pairing score against butter, lemon. 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.

You might also like

Lemon SauceLemon Sauce236 recipesCauliflower SoupCauliflower Soup28 recipesCream of Cauliflower SoupCream of Cauliflower Soup22 recipesCreamed CauliflowerCreamed Cauliflower17 recipes