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Sauce

Butter Sauce

A sauce made from flour, spices, butter, lemon juice, and water.

From an old cookbook · modernised transcription
From a historical cookbook (Internet Archive) · 8 ingredients
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Butter Sauce

Why it works: Nutmeg and clove match in chemistry and in kitchens. They rank in the top 1% of all ingredient pairs, and cooks put them together in 8,686 recipes. Both carry estragole, which smells anise, licorice. The science ↓

Butter Sauce

Ingredients

Directions

Make the paste

  1. Season the flour with pepper, nutmeg, and cloves.

  2. Mix it with enough water to form a thin paste.

  3. Work in the butter until fully combined.

Cook and finish

  1. Place the paste in a pan over medium heat and boil for 15 minutes.

  2. Remove from heat and gradually add fresh butter while stirring continuously.

  3. Add lemon juice to taste and mix thoroughly.

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. Nutmeg + clovetop 1% of all pairs
    Smell alikestrong
    Cooked together8,686 recipes

    Shared aroma: estragole (anise, licorice).

  2. Pepper + lemontop 3% of all pairs
    Smell alikestrong
    Cooked together27,047 recipes

    Shared aroma: trans-2-nonenal (cardboard, fatty).

  3. Pepper + clovetop 5% of all pairs
    Smell alikestrong
    Cooked together17,451 recipes

    Shared aroma: ethyl octanoate (fruity, wine).

  4. Nutmeg + lemontop 5% of all pairs
    Smell alikestrong
    Cooked together11,318 recipes

    Shared aroma: beta-phellandrene (minty, terpene).

  5. Pepper + nutmegtop 7% of all pairs
    Smell alikestrong
    Cooked together13,015 recipes

    Shared aroma: 4'-methylacetophenone (bitter almond).

Ranks compare each pair with 20,000 random ingredient pairs on CompKitchen. How we score pairs

What each ingredient does

All-purpose flour
Thickens the sauce as its starch cooks into a paste.
Butter
Adds richness and a smooth, glossy mouthfeel to the sauce.
Lemon juice
Adds acidity that brightens the sauce and balances its richness.

The step that matters

Adding the fresh butter off the heat. Stirring in butter gradually while the paste is off the heat lets it emulsify smoothly. Adding it too fast or over direct heat can cause it to separate and turn greasy.

Swap the clove

How well each one fits the dish's main ingredients (flour, pepper, nutmeg, egg, butter, lemon):

  1. Parsleyfits better
  2. Cinnamonfits better
  3. Marjoramfits better
  4. Clovethe original

Fit is the average pairing score against flour, pepper, nutmeg, egg, butter, lemon. 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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Drawn 103Melted 103Lemon 58Parsley 30Black 23Brown 13 See all 80 →

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