Skip to main content
Main

Cauliflower “ Au Gratin.”

A baked cauliflower dish topped with melted butter, Gruyère, Parmesan, and breadcrumbs.

From an old cookbook · modernised transcription
From a historical cookbook (Internet Archive) · 5 ingredients
Jump to recipe ↓

Why it works: Gruyere cheese and parmesan cheese match in chemistry and in kitchens. They rank in the top 1% of all ingredient pairs, and cooks put them together in 152 recipes. Both carry ethyl 2-methylbutyrate, which smells fruity, apple. The science ↓

Cauliflower “ Au Gratin.”

Ingredients

Directions

The book gives no oven temperature. The 350°F (175°C) in the steps was added when the recipe was transcribed, as a starting point.

Prepare the cauliflower

  1. Boil the cauliflower until tender.

  2. Divide the cauliflower into florets.

Assemble the gratin

  1. Layer half of the cauliflower in a baking dish.

  2. Cover with half of the melted butter sauce mixed with Gruyère and Parmesan cheese.

  3. Add another layer of cauliflower.

  4. Cover with the remaining sauce.

  5. Sprinkle the top with breadcrumbs and a little more cheese.

  6. Drizzle with hot butter.

Bake

  1. Bake at 350°F (175°C) until golden and bubbly.

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. Gruyere cheese + parmesan cheesetop 1% of all pairs
    Smell alikestrong
    Cooked together152 recipes

    Shared aroma: ethyl 2-methylbutyrate (fruity, apple).

  2. Butter + breadtop 7% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together27,232 recipes

    Shared aroma: delta-decalactone (sweet, creamy).

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

    Shared aroma: guaiacol (smoky, sweet).

  4. Butter + gruyere cheesetop 9% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together323 recipes

    Shared aroma: gamma-decalactone (peach, creamy).

  5. Parmesan cheese + breadtop 15% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together577 recipes

    Shared aroma: guaiacol (smoky, sweet).

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 when boiled before layering.
Melted butter
Carries fat through the sauce and helps the top brown in the oven.
Gruyere cheese
Melts into the sauce, adding richness and a stretchy, savory texture.
Parmesan cheese
Adds sharp, salty flavor and helps the top crisp and brown as it bakes.
Bread crumbs
Form a crisp, golden topping that contrasts with the soft layers below.

The step that matters

Drizzling the top with hot butter before baking. Fat on the surface promotes even browning and crispness, while cheese sauce alone may stay pale or greasy. Boiling the cauliflower until just tender matters too, since overcooked florets turn mushy and release water into the dish.

Swap the cauliflower

How well each one fits the dish's main ingredients (butter, gruyere cheese, parmesan cheese, bread):

  1. Tomatofits better
  2. Potatofits better
  3. Asparagusfits better
  4. Cauliflowerthe original

Fit is the average pairing score against butter, gruyere cheese, parmesan cheese, bread. 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

Brown BreadBrown Bread461 recipesMacaroni and CheeseMacaroni and Cheese102 recipesWhite BreadWhite Bread80 recipesBread OmeletteBread Omelette60 recipes