Skip to main content
Main

Cauliflowers and Tomatoes

A baked dish of cauliflower topped with tomato sauce.

From an old cookbook · modernised transcription
From a historical cookbook (Internet Archive) · 2 ingredients
Jump to recipe ↓

Why it works: Cauliflower and tomato work together. They rank in the top 10% of all ingredient pairs, and cooks put them together in 91 recipes. Both carry 1-octen-3-one, which smells mushroom, metallic. The science ↓

Cauliflowers and Tomatoes

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. Boil the cauliflowers until tender.

  2. Prepare the tomato sauce as directed in another recipe.

Assemble and bake

  1. Carefully place the cauliflowers on a serving dish.

  2. Pour the sauce over the cauliflowers, leaving the center clear.

  3. Bake in a 400°F (200°C) oven for 5 minutes.

  4. Serve immediately.

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 + tomatotop 10% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together91 recipes

    Shared aroma: 1-octen-3-one (mushroom, metallic).

  2. Tomato + saucetop 15% of all pairs
    Smell alikelow
    Cooked together5,469 recipes

    Shared aroma: ethanol (alcoholic, ethereal).

  3. Cauliflower + saucetop 22% of all pairs
    Smell alikelow
    Cooked together463 recipes

    Shared aroma: ethanol (alcoholic, ethereal).

Ranks compare each pair with 20,000 random ingredient pairs on CompKitchen. How we score pairs

What each ingredient does

Cauliflowers
Form the main body of the dish and provide its tender, mild texture once boiled.
Tomato sauce
Adds moisture and acidity, coating the cauliflower and giving the dish its flavour.

The step that matters

Carefully place the cauliflowers on a serving dish. Boiled cauliflower is soft and can break apart easily. Handling it gently keeps the florets intact, and leaving the center of the sauce clear helps the cauliflower show through once baked.

Swap the cauliflower

How well each one fits the dish's main ingredients (tomato, sauce):

  1. Capsicumfits better
  2. Eggplantfits better
  3. Okrafits better
  4. Cauliflowerthe original

Fit is the average pairing score against tomato, sauce. 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

Tomato SoupTomato Soup526 recipesCream of Tomato SoupCream of Tomato Soup107 recipesTomato BisqueTomato Bisque61 recipesCauliflower SoupCauliflower Soup28 recipes