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Cauliflowers Au Gratin

A baked cauliflower dish topped with white sauce and cheese.

From an old cookbook · modernised transcription
From a historical cookbook (Internet Archive) · 5 ingredients
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Why it works: Cauliflower and pepper are a kitchen classic. They rank in the top 9% of all ingredient pairs, and cooks put them together in 1,113 recipes. Both carry 4'-methylacetophenone, which smells bitter almond. The science ↓

Cauliflowers Au Gratin

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 cauliflower until tender.

  2. Prepare the white sauce as directed in your recipe.

Assemble

  1. Place the cauliflower in a serving dish.

  2. Mix half of the cheese into the white sauce and season with pepper and salt.

  3. Heat the sauce and pour it over the cauliflower.

  4. Sprinkle the remaining cheese on top.

Bake

  1. Bake in a 400°F (200°C) oven until golden brown.

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 + peppertop 9% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together1,113 recipes

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

  2. Cheese + peppertop 18% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together7,861 recipes

    Shared aroma: 2-isopropyl-3-methoxypyrazine (earthy, pea).

  3. Sauce + cheesetop 19% of all pairs
    Smell alikelow
    Cooked together1,987 recipes

    Shared aroma: ethanol (alcoholic, ethereal).

  4. Cauliflower + cheesetop 21% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together171 recipes

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

  5. 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

Cauliflower
Forms the bulk of the dish and becomes tender under the sauce.
White sauce
Adds moisture and a creamy layer that coats the cauliflower.
Dry grated cheese
Adds savoury flavour and browns on top when baked.

The step that matters

Bake until golden brown. The sauce must be hot all the way through so the dish cooks evenly. The cheese browns through the Maillard reaction, which needs enough heat, but over-baking can dry the sauce and scorch the top.

Swap the cauliflower

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

  1. Capsicumfits better
  2. Mustardfits better
  3. Tomatofits better
  4. Cauliflowerthe original

Fit is the average pairing score against sauce, cheese, 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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