Why it works: Butter and flour are a kitchen classic. They rank in the top 12% of all ingredient pairs, and cooks put them together in 124,287 recipes. Both carry isobutyraldehyde, which smells malty, green. The science ↓
To Make Gravy
Ingredients
Directions
Make the roux
Melt the butter in a pan.
Blend in the flour and cook for a moment.
Add the liquid and season
Add the boiling water and stir until smooth.
Season with salt and pepper.
Hold
Keep on the cooler part of the stove until ready to serve.
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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Butter + flourtop 12% of all pairsSmell alikelowCooked together124,287 recipes
Shared aroma: isobutyraldehyde (malty, green).
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Flour + peppertop 19% of all pairsSmell alikemoderateCooked together50,459 recipes
Shared aroma: isobutyraldehyde (malty, green).
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Butter + peppertop 21% of all pairsSmell alikemoderateCooked together85,593 recipes
Shared aroma: trans-2-nonenal (cardboard, fatty).
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
- Butter
- Carries fat and flavour into the base and helps the flour cook smoothly.
- Flour
- Its starch swells in the hot liquid, thickening the gravy.
- Water
- Forms the liquid body of the gravy that the thickened starch holds.
The step that matters
Add the boiling water and stir until smooth. Flour starch swells as it heats in liquid. Adding the water to the butter and flour mixture and stirring keeps the starch evenly dispersed, which prevents lumps as the gravy thickens.
“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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