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Cauliflower in White Sauce

A cauliflower dish simmered in broth, mace, salt, white pepper, cream, butter, and flour.

From an old cookbook · modernised transcription
From a historical cookbook (Internet Archive) · 8 ingredients
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Why it works: Cream and butter are a kitchen classic. They rank in the top 8% of all ingredient pairs, and cooks put them together in 41,516 recipes. Both carry delta-dodecalactone, which smells sweet, creamy. The science ↓

Cauliflower in White Sauce

Ingredients

Directions

Prepare

  1. Half boil the cauliflower and cut it into pieces.

  2. In a stew pan, combine the cauliflower, broth, mace, salt, and white pepper.

  3. Simmer for half an hour.

Make the sauce

  1. Add cream, butter, and flour.

  2. Shake and simmer for a few more minutes.

  3. Serve hot.

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. Cream + buttertop 8% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together41,516 recipes

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

  2. Mace + white peppertop 9% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together1,695 recipes

    Shared aroma: myrcene (balsamic, herbaceous).

  3. Cauliflower + flourtop 12% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together569 recipes

    Shared aroma: isobutyraldehyde (malty, green).

  4. Butter + flourtop 12% of all pairs
    Smell alikelow
    Cooked together124,287 recipes

    Shared aroma: isobutyraldehyde (malty, green).

  5. Mace + creamtop 18% of all pairs
    Smell alikelow
    Cooked together4,009 recipes

Butter and flour barely smell alike, yet cooks put them together in 124,287 recipes: they work on texture and structure more than aroma.

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 absorbs flavor as it simmers in the broth.
Cream
Adds richness and a smooth, silky texture to the sauce.
Butter
Adds fat and flavor, helping the sauce feel rich and glossy.
Flour
Thickens the liquid into a white sauce as it cooks with the butter and broth.

The step that matters

Adding the flour and simmering. Flour must be fully incorporated and cooked for a few minutes so it thickens smoothly and loses its raw starchy taste. Adding it to liquid that is too hot or unstirred can cause lumps.

Swap the white pepper

How well each one fits the dish's main ingredients (cauliflower, mace, cream, butter, flour):

  1. Nutmegfits better
  2. Turmericfits better
  3. Cinnamonfits better
  4. White pepperthe original

Fit is the average pairing score against cauliflower, mace, cream, butter, flour. 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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