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 ↓
White Sauce
Ingredients
Directions
Heat the milk or cream in a double boiler.
In a saucepan, melt the butter over medium heat without browning it.
Add the cornstarch to the melted butter and stir until well mixed.
Pour in one-third of the milk and stir until it boils and thickens.
Add another third of the milk and let it boil, stirring vigorously until smooth.
Add the remaining milk, let it boil, and stir until smooth.
Season with salt and pepper and adjust to taste.
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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Milk + buttertop 7% of all pairsSmell alikemoderateCooked together81,283 recipes
Shared aroma: (z)-4-heptenal (biscuit, cream).
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Butter + peppertop 21% of all pairsSmell alikemoderateCooked together85,593 recipes
Shared aroma: trans-2-nonenal (cardboard, fatty).
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Milk + peppertop 22% of all pairsSmell alikemoderateCooked together26,984 recipes
Shared aroma: ethyl 2-methylbutyrate (fruity, apple).
Ranks compare each pair with 20,000 random ingredient pairs on CompKitchen. How we score pairs
What each ingredient does
- Milk or cream
- Forms the liquid base of the sauce, which thickens as it heats.
- Butter
- Adds richness and carries flavor; melted first to form the base for the thickener.
- Cornstarch
- Thickens the liquid into a smooth sauce when heated with it.
The step that matters
Adding the milk in portions. Cornstarch swells and thickens when it boils, so the milk should be added gradually and stirred constantly to keep the sauce smooth and free of lumps.
“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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