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Cauliflower Au Gratin

A baked cauliflower dish topped with cheese, breadcrumbs, and seasonings.

From an old cookbook · modernised transcription
From a historical cookbook (Internet Archive) · 6 ingredients
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Why it works: Cheese and bread are a kitchen classic. They rank in the top 7% of all ingredient pairs, and cooks put them together in 2,130 recipes. Both carry delta-decalactone, which smells sweet, creamy. The science ↓

Cauliflower Au Gratin

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

  1. Cook the cauliflower until tender, then drain well.

  2. Remove the flowerettes and tear the remaining cauliflower into pieces with a fork.

Assemble and bake

  1. Place the torn cauliflower in a deep dish and sprinkle with salt, pepper, grated cheese, and moistened bread crumbs.

  2. Add the flowerettes on top and sprinkle with more salt, pepper, and cheese.

  3. Bake at 400°F (200°C) until slightly 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. Cheese + breadtop 7% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together2,130 recipes

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

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

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

  3. Cheese + milktop 10% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together4,426 recipes

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

  4. Bread + milktop 11% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together11,466 recipes

    Shared aroma: 2-undecenal (sweet).

  5. Cauliflower + breadtop 16% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together223 recipes

    Shared aroma: decanal (soap, orange peel).

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 as it cooks.
Grated cheese
Melts and browns on top, adding richness and savory flavor.
Dried bread crumbs
Absorb moisture and form a crisp, browned topping.
Milk
Adds moisture to the dish.

The step that matters

Drain the cauliflower well. Water left on the cauliflower pools in the dish and makes the gratin soggy. Well-drained cauliflower lets the cheese and crumbs brown instead of steaming.

Swap the cauliflower

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

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

Fit is the average pairing score against pepper, cheese, bread, milk. 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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