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Cauliflowers, with Parmesan Cheese

A baked cauliflower dish topped with a béchamel‑parmesan sauce and gratinated until golden.

From an old cookbook · modernised transcription
From a historical cookbook (Internet Archive) · 11 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 the cauliflower by removing the leaves and cutting it into florets.

Make the sauce

  1. In a saucepan, combine the béchamel or velouté 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 cauliflower to coat it completely.

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

  3. Place the cauliflower in a preheated oven at 400°F (200°C) to gratinate for about 15 minutes until golden brown.

  4. Arrange croutons around the base of the dish before serving.

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

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

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

    Shared aroma: guaiacol (smoky, sweet).

  5. Cauliflower + peppertop 9% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together1,113 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 bulk of the dish and becomes tender under the sauce as it bakes.
Parmesan cheese
Melts and browns on the surface, adding savoury flavour and a golden crust.
Egg yolks
Enrich the sauce and help it set into a creamy, cohesive texture when heated.
Butter
Adds fat and richness, giving the sauce a smooth mouthfeel.
Béchamel or velouté sauce
Provides a creamy base that coats the cauliflower and carries the other flavours.

The step that matters

Stirring the sauce over low heat without boiling. Egg yolks thicken at gentle temperatures but can scramble and curdle if the mixture gets too hot, leaving the sauce grainy instead of smooth.

Swap the cauliflower

How well each one fits the dish's main ingredients (sauce, parmesan cheese, butter, egg, lemon, nutmeg, pepper):

  1. Spinachfits better
  2. Asparagusfits better
  3. Capsicumfits better
  4. Cauliflowerthe original

Fit is the average pairing score against sauce, parmesan cheese, butter, egg, lemon, nutmeg, pepper. 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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