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Cauliflowers Au Beubjre

A simple side dish of boiled cauliflower sautéed in butter and seasoned with pepper, salt, and nutmeg.

From an old cookbook · modernised transcription
From a historical cookbook (Internet Archive) · 5 ingredients
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Why it works: Pepper and nutmeg match in chemistry and in kitchens. They rank in the top 7% of all ingredient pairs, and cooks put them together in 13,015 recipes. Both carry 4'-methylacetophenone, which smells bitter almond. The science ↓

Cauliflowers Au Beubjre

Ingredients

Directions

  1. Boil the cauliflower until tender.

  2. Drain the cauliflower from the water.

  3. In a skillet, fry the cauliflower in butter.

  4. Season with pepper, salt, and nutmeg.

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. Pepper + nutmegtop 7% of all pairs
    Smell alikestrong
    Cooked together13,015 recipes

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

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

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

  3. Cauliflower + nutmegtop 9% of all pairs
    Smell alikestrong
    Cooked together126 recipes

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

  4. Butter + nutmegtop 16% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together24,377 recipes

    Shared aroma: eucalyptol (eucalyptus, herbal).

  5. Butter + peppertop 21% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together85,593 recipes

    Shared aroma: trans-2-nonenal (cardboard, fatty).

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, cooked until tender and then browned in butter.
Butter
Adds fat and richness, and helps the cauliflower brown when fried in the skillet.
Nutmeg
Adds a warm, aromatic flavour that complements the butter and cauliflower.

The step that matters

Drain the cauliflower well before frying. Water left on boiled cauliflower will dilute the butter and steam the pieces instead of letting them brown. Thorough draining helps the surface sear in the hot fat.

Swap the cauliflower

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

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

Fit is the average pairing score against butter, pepper, nutmeg. 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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