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Cauliflower

A baked cauliflower dish with a rich milk and flour cream, topped with cheese and buttered cracker crumbs.

From an old cookbook · modernised transcription
From a historical cookbook (Internet Archive) · 9 ingredients
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Why it works: Butter and milk are a kitchen classic. They rank in the top 7% of all ingredient pairs, and cooks put them together in 81,283 recipes. Both carry (z)-4-heptenal, which smells biscuit, cream. The science ↓

Cauliflower

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 the cauliflower

  1. Boil the cauliflower in well salted water for 45 minutes.

  2. Drain thoroughly and place in an earthen baking dish.

Make the cream

  1. Combine 1 cup of milk, 1 teaspoon of flour, and ½ egg-sized piece of butter in a saucepan.

  2. Heat the mixture to make a rich cream.

  3. Pour the cream over the cauliflower.

Top and bake

  1. Grate cheese over the top.

  2. Sprinkle moistened cracker crumbs.

  3. Bake in a 400°F (200°C) oven until browned.

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. Butter + milktop 7% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together81,283 recipes

    Shared aroma: (z)-4-heptenal (biscuit, cream).

  2. Butter + cheesetop 8% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together7,962 recipes

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

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

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

  4. Milk + cheesetop 10% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together4,426 recipes

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

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

    Shared aroma: isobutyraldehyde (malty, green).

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 through boiling.
Milk
Forms the base of the rich cream that coats the cauliflower.
Flour
Thickens the milk and butter mixture into a cream that holds together.
Butter
Adds richness and fat to the cream, giving a smooth, savoury flavour.
Cheese
Melts and browns on top, adding flavour and a golden crust.

The step that matters

Heat the milk mixture to make a rich cream. Flour must be heated with the milk and butter so its starch swells and thickens the liquid. Stirring keeps it smooth and prevents lumps, so the cream coats the cauliflower evenly.

Swap the cauliflower

How well each one fits the dish's main ingredients (butter, pepper, milk, flour, egg, cheese):

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

Fit is the average pairing score against butter, pepper, milk, flour, egg, 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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