Name: Drawn Butter Sauces
Ingredients: 1 heaping tablespoon butter or beef fat; 1 heaping tablespoon flour; 1 pint water; 1 teaspoon salt; ½ teaspoon pepper; 3 tablespoons butter (optional, for flavor)

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 ↓

Drawn Butter Sauces

Ingredients

Directions

Make the sauce

In a saucepan, melt the butter or beef fat over medium heat until it boils.
Add the flour and stir as it cooks for a minute.
Gradually add the water, stirring continuously.
Stir in the salt and pepper.

Finish and serve

For added flavor, mix in the optional butter just before serving.

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.

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.

Butter + flourtop 12% of all pairs

Smell alikelow

Cooked together124,287 recipes

Shared aroma: isobutyraldehyde (malty, green).
Flour + peppertop 19% of all pairs

Smell alikemoderate

Cooked together50,459 recipes

Shared aroma: isobutyraldehyde (malty, green).
Butter + peppertop 21% of all pairs

Smell alikemoderate

Cooked 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 or beef fat: Melted fat carries the flavor and coats the flour so it cooks smoothly.
Flour: Thickens the sauce as it cooks with the fat and then with the water.
Water: Forms the liquid base that the flour thickens into a sauce.