Name: Cauliflower Salad
Ingredients: 4 to 6 pounds cauliflower; Hollandaise salad cream; a little oil; a little vinegar

Why it works: Cauliflower and vinegar work together. They rank in the top 13% of all ingredient pairs, and cooks put them together in 888 recipes. Both carry 4'-methylacetophenone, which smells bitter almond. The science ↓

Cauliflower Salad

Ingredients

4 to 6 pounds cauliflower
Hollandaise salad cream
a little oil
a little vinegar

Directions

Cut the cauliflower into individual-sized pieces while raw.
Trim the stems evenly.
Soak the pieces in a pan of cold water for 1 to 2 hours.
Prepare the Hollandaise salad cream as per the previous recipe.
Combine the cauliflower with a little oil and vinegar before serving.

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.

Cauliflower + vinegartop 13% of all pairs

Smell alikemoderate

Cooked together888 recipes

Shared aroma: 4'-methylacetophenone (bitter almond).
Cream + vinegartop 25% of all pairs

Smell alikemoderate

Cooked together4,064 recipes

Shared aroma: acetic acid (sour, vinegar).
Cauliflower + creamtop 27% of all pairs

Smell alikemoderate

Cooked together284 recipes

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