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Cream of Cauliflower Soup

A creamy soup made from cooked cauliflower, milk, butter, flour, and seasonings.

From an old cookbook · modernised transcription
From a historical cookbook (Internet Archive) · 7 ingredients
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Cream of Cauliflower Soup

Why it works: Milk and butter are a kitchen classic. They rank in the top 7% of all ingredient pairs, and cooks put them together in 81,283 recipes. Both carry (z)-4-heptenal, which smells biscuit, cream. The science ↓

Cream of Cauliflower Soup

Ingredients

Directions

Make the soup

  1. Combine cooked cauliflower and its cooking water in a pot.

  2. Add milk and bring to a simmer.

Thicken and finish

  1. Melt butter in a separate pan and stir in flour to make a roux.

  2. Gradually add the roux to the soup, stirring until thickened.

  3. Season with salt and pepper, then strain if desired.

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.

Photo for illustrative purposes only · Contact us to use it

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

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

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

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

  3. Cauliflower + flourtop 12% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together569 recipes

    Shared aroma: isobutyraldehyde (malty, green).

  4. Butter + flourtop 12% of all pairs
    Smell alikelow
    Cooked together124,287 recipes

    Shared aroma: isobutyraldehyde (malty, green).

  5. Milk + flourtop 14% of all pairs
    Smell alikelow
    Cooked together78,219 recipes

    Shared aroma: isobutyraldehyde (malty, green).

Butter and flour barely smell alike, yet cooks put them together in 124,287 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 body and bulk of the soup as it softens and breaks down.
Milk
Adds creaminess and a soft, rich texture to the soup.
Butter
Adds fat and richness, and carries flavour through the roux.
Flour
Thickens the soup as the roux cooks into the liquid.

The step that matters

Adding the roux to the soup. Flour thickens only when starch granules swell in hot liquid. Adding the roux gradually and stirring keeps it smooth, while dumping it in at once can form lumps that are hard to whisk out.

Swap the cauliflower

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

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

Fit is the average pairing score against milk, butter, flour, pepper. 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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