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Cauliflower

A cauliflower dish simmered in a butter and arrowroot sauce, finished with egg yolk, lime juice, and grated Parmesan.

From an old cookbook · modernised transcription
From a historical cookbook (Internet Archive) · 7 ingredients
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Why it works: Arrowroot and lime share more aroma than cooks usually use. They rank in the top 1% of all ingredient pairs, and cooks put them together in 30 recipes. Both carry coumarin, which smells sweet, hay. The science ↓

Cauliflower

Ingredients

Directions

Prepare the cauliflower

  1. Remove the leaves and stalk from the cauliflower, ensuring it stands upright.

Make the sauce

  1. In a saucepan, melt the butter and mix in the arrowroot.

  2. Gradually add the water and bring to a simmer.

  3. Add the cauliflower and let it stew for a few minutes.

  4. Remove from heat and stir in the beaten egg yolk, lime juice, and a little water.

  5. Return to low heat until the sauce thickens.

Bake and serve

  1. Transfer the cauliflower to a dish, cover with grated Parmesan, and pour the sauce around it.

  2. Brown the top with a salamander or under a broiler.

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. Arrowroot + limetop 1% of all pairs
    Smell alikestrong
    Cooked together30 recipes

    Shared aroma: coumarin (sweet, hay).

  2. Cauliflower + limetop 8% of all pairs
    Smell alikestrong
    Cooked together19 recipes

    Shared aroma: decanal (soap, orange peel).

  3. Butter + parmesan cheesetop 9% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together4,163 recipes

    Shared aroma: guaiacol (smoky, sweet).

  4. Cauliflower + arrowroottop 9% of all pairs
    Smell alikestrong
    Cooked together5 recipes

    Shared aroma: coumarin (sweet, hay).

  5. Butter + eggtop 17% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together118,967 recipes

    Shared aroma: decanal (soap, orange peel).

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 and is gently cooked until tender in the sauce.
Butter
Adds richness and fat, carrying flavour and giving the sauce a smooth mouthfeel.
Arrowroot
Thickens the sauce as it heats, giving it a glossy, smooth body.
Egg yolk
Enriches and thickens the sauce, adding body and a creamy texture when gently heated.
Parmesan cheese
Adds savoury, salty flavour and browns on top under the heat.

The step that matters

Return the sauce to low heat. Egg yolk thickens by gentle heat but can scramble if the sauce boils, leaving it grainy. Keeping the heat low lets it thicken smoothly.

Swap the lime

How well each one fits the dish's main ingredients (cauliflower, butter, arrowroot, egg, parmesan cheese):

  1. Lemonfits better
  2. Coconutfits about as well
  3. Limethe original
  4. Pumpkinfits about as well

Fit is the average pairing score against cauliflower, butter, arrowroot, egg, parmesan cheese. 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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