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 Served with Fried Chicken
Ingredients
Directions
Heat the sweet cream in a saucepan over hot water.
In a bowl, cream the butter and flour together.
Once the cream boils, stir in the butter and flour mixture until thickened.
Add salt to taste and stir in the chopped parsley just before removing from heat.
Place the cauliflower heads in the center of a serving dish.
Pour some of the dressing over the cauliflower.
Arrange the fried chicken pieces around the cauliflower.
Pour the remaining dressing over the chicken and serve very hot.
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.
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Cream + buttertop 8% of all pairsSmell alikemoderateCooked together41,516 recipes
Shared aroma: delta-dodecalactone (sweet, creamy).
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Butter + flourtop 12% of all pairsSmell alikelowCooked together124,287 recipes
Shared aroma: isobutyraldehyde (malty, green).
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Flour + parsleytop 12% of all pairsSmell alikemoderateCooked together16,675 recipes
Shared aroma: isobutyraldehyde (malty, green).
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Butter + parsleytop 15% of all pairsSmell alikemoderateCooked together28,563 recipes
Shared aroma: trans-2-hexenal (green, leafy).
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Cream + flourtop 20% of all pairsSmell alikemoderateCooked together30,481 recipes
Shared aroma: acetaldehyde (pungent, ethereal).
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
Swap the parsley
How well each one fits the dish's main ingredients (cream, butter, flour):
- Nutmegfits better
- Jalapenofits better
- Capersfits better
- Parsleythe original
Fit is the average pairing score against cream, butter, flour. Candidates are from the same food group and used in at least 100 recipes.
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