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Cauliflower Cream Soup

A soup made with cauliflower, stock, milk, butter, onion, mace, and parsley, thickened with flour.

From an old cookbook · modernised transcription
From a historical cookbook (Internet Archive) · 9 ingredients
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Why it works: Cauliflower and parsley match in chemistry and in kitchens. They rank in the top 5% of all ingredient pairs, and cooks put them together in 233 recipes. Both carry 4'-methylacetophenone, which smells bitter almond. The science ↓

Cauliflower Cream Soup

Ingredients

Directions

Prepare the cauliflower

  1. Break the cauliflower into small florets.

  2. Boil the florets in salted water for about 30 minutes.

  3. Mash half of the cooked cauliflower.

Make the soup

  1. Combine the soup stock and minced onion in a saucepan.

  2. Bring the mixture to a boil.

  3. Add the mashed cauliflower to the boiling stock.

  4. Boil the milk.

  5. Add the boiled milk to the mixture.

  6. Season the soup with salt and pepper.

  7. If the soup is not thick enough, thicken it with a flour-and-water mixture until it resembles thin cream.

  8. Stir in the butter.

  9. Add the remaining whole cauliflower florets.

  10. Garnish with minced parsley 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.

  1. Cauliflower + parsleytop 5% of all pairs
    Smell alikestrong
    Cooked together233 recipes

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

  2. Milk + buttertop 7% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together81,283 recipes

    Shared aroma: (z)-4-heptenal (biscuit, cream).

  3. Onion + parsleytop 9% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together25,843 recipes

    Shared aroma: 2,4-decadienal (seaweed).

  4. Mace + white peppertop 9% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together1,695 recipes

    Shared aroma: myrcene (balsamic, herbaceous).

  5. Cauliflower + oniontop 10% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together935 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
Provides the body and flavour of the soup; mashed portion thickens it while whole florets add texture.
Soup stock
Forms the liquid base of the soup.
Rich milk
Adds creaminess and a smooth, mellow body to the soup.
Flour (in the method)
Thickens the soup when added as a flour-and-water mixture.
Butter
Adds richness and fat for a smoother mouthfeel.

The step that matters

Thickening with flour-and-water mixture. Flour must be mixed with water into a smooth slurry before adding, and the soup kept simmering while stirring, so starch gelatinises evenly and no lumps form. Adding it dry or too quickly causes clumping and uneven thickness.

Swap the white pepper

How well each one fits the dish's main ingredients (milk, cauliflower, onion, mace, butter, parsley):

  1. Nutmegfits better
  2. Thymefits better
  3. Capersfits better
  4. White pepperthe original

Fit is the average pairing score against milk, cauliflower, onion, mace, butter, parsley. 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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