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Cauliflower Au Gratin

A baked cauliflower dish topped with white sauce, Parmesan cheese, and butter.

From an old cookbook · modernised transcription
From a historical cookbook (Internet Archive) · 4 ingredients
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Why it works: Parmesan cheese and butter are a kitchen classic. They rank in the top 9% of all ingredient pairs, and cooks put them together in 4,163 recipes. Both carry guaiacol, which smells smoky, sweet. The science ↓

Cauliflower Au Gratin

Ingredients

Directions

Prepare

  1. Boil the cauliflower until tender, then squeeze out all the water.

  2. Place the cauliflower in a vegetable dish.

Make the topping

  1. Mix half of the grated Parmesan cheese into the white sauce and pour it over the cauliflower.

  2. Sprinkle the remaining cheese on top and add small pieces of butter.

Bake and brown

  1. Place the dish in front of the fire until it turns 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. Parmesan cheese + buttertop 9% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together4,163 recipes

    Shared aroma: guaiacol (smoky, sweet).

  2. Sauce + buttertop 15% of all pairs
    Smell alikelow
    Cooked together15,338 recipes

    Shared aroma: ethanol (alcoholic, ethereal).

  3. Cauliflower + parmesan cheesetop 19% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together138 recipes

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

  4. Sauce + parmesan cheesetop 19% of all pairs
    Smell alikelow
    Cooked together1,294 recipes

    Shared aroma: decanoic acid (soapy, waxy).

  5. Cauliflower + saucetop 22% of all pairs
    Smell alikelow
    Cooked together463 recipes

    Shared aroma: ethanol (alcoholic, ethereal).

Sauce and butter barely smell alike, yet cooks put them together in 15,338 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 bulk of the dish and turns soft and tender when boiled.
White sauce
Adds moisture and a creamy body that coats the cauliflower.
Parmesan cheese
Adds savory flavor and helps the top brown and turn golden.
Butter
Adds richness and fat that helps the top brown evenly.

The step that matters

Squeezing out the water from the cauliflower. Any water left in the cauliflower dilutes the white sauce and leaves the dish watery. Removing it lets the sauce thicken and cling to the vegetable.

Swap the cauliflower

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

  1. Tomatofits better
  2. Asparagusfits better
  3. Onionfits better
  4. Cauliflowerthe original

Fit is the average pairing score against sauce, parmesan cheese, butter. 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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