Why it works: Pepper and butter are a kitchen classic. They rank in the top 21% of all ingredient pairs, and cooks put them together in 85,593 recipes. Both carry trans-2-nonenal, which smells cardboard, fatty. The science ↓
Drawn Butter
Ingredients
Directions
Make the sauce
In a saucepan, bring the boiling water to a boil.
Mix the flour smoothly in the cold water and pour it into the boiling water.
Stir constantly and let it boil for a few minutes to cook the flour.
Finish and serve
Remove from heat and cut the butter into small pieces, stirring well.
Serve immediately or keep it hot for up to 30 minutes without boiling.
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.
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Pepper + buttertop 21% of all pairsSmell alikemoderateCooked 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
- Butter
- Adds richness, fat and a rounded flavour to the sauce.
- Flour (in the method)
- Thickens the liquid as its starch swells and sets when heated.
The step that matters
Stirring the flour into the boiling water. Adding flour to hot liquid without constant stirring forms lumps. Boiling for a few minutes fully cooks the starch, which removes the raw floury taste and gives full thickening.
“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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