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Cream of Cauliflower Soup

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

From an old cookbook · modernised transcription
From a historical cookbook (Internet Archive) · 6 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. In a pot, combine cooked cauliflower and its cooking water.

  2. Add milk and bring to a simmer.

Thicken and finish

  1. In a separate pan, melt butter and whisk in flour to create a roux.

  2. Stir the roux into the soup to thicken.

  3. Season with salt, heat through, and 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 + flourtop 12% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together569 recipes

    Shared aroma: isobutyraldehyde (malty, green).

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

    Shared aroma: isobutyraldehyde (malty, green).

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

    Shared aroma: isobutyraldehyde (malty, green).

  5. Cauliflower + milktop 20% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together314 recipes

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

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
Provides the main body and flavor of the soup as it cooks down into the liquid.
Milk
Adds creaminess and mild sweetness to the soup base.
Butter
Adds richness and fat, and forms the base of the roux.
Flour
Thickens the soup when cooked with butter into a roux.

The step that matters

Stirring the roux into the soup. Flour must be cooked in the butter first so it thickens smoothly without lumps or a raw starchy taste. Adding the roux to hot liquid and stirring well helps it disperse evenly and thicken the soup as it heats.

Swap the cauliflower

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

  1. Potatofits better
  2. Arrowrootfits better
  3. Leekfits better
  4. Cauliflowerthe original

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