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Cauliflower Au Gratin

A baked cauliflower dish topped with butter, pepper, salt, and grated cheese.

From an old cookbook · modernised transcription
From a historical cookbook (Internet Archive) · 5 ingredients
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Why it works: Butter and cheese are a kitchen classic. They rank in the top 8% of all ingredient pairs, and cooks put them together in 7,962 recipes. Both carry delta-dodecalactone, which smells sweet, creamy. The science ↓

Cauliflower Au Gratin

Oven, in the book's wordsA quick oven

Ingredients

Directions

The book says “a quick oven”. The 400°F (200°C) in the steps is the modern equivalent, not the book's own figure.

Prepare the cauliflower

  1. Tie the cauliflower in a piece of cheesecloth.

  2. Plunge it into a pot of boiling water and cook for 20 to 30 minutes.

Assemble and bake

  1. Cut the cauliflower into sprays and place them in a buttered baking dish.

  2. Pour the drawn butter over the cauliflower, then add pepper and salt.

  3. Sprinkle grated cheese thickly on top.

  4. Bake in a 400°F (200°C) oven until lightly 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 + cheesetop 8% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together7,962 recipes

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

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

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

  3. Pepper + cheesetop 18% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together7,861 recipes

    Shared aroma: 2-isopropyl-3-methoxypyrazine (earthy, pea).

  4. Cauliflower + cheesetop 21% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together171 recipes

    Shared aroma: 1-octen-3-one (mushroom, metallic).

  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 and provides the vegetable structure once cooked.
Drawn butter
Adds richness and moisture, coating the cauliflower as it bakes.
Grated cheese
Melts over the top and browns in the oven, forming the gratin crust.

The step that matters

Baking until lightly browned. The cheese browns through Maillard browning and the sugars and proteins in it react at high heat, so pulling the dish too early leaves it pale and under-flavoured, while leaving it too long can scorch the cheese.

Swap the cauliflower

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

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

Fit is the average pairing score against butter, pepper, 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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