Name: A Delicious Breakfast Dish
Ingredients: 1 pint water; 1 tablespoon butter; 1 tablespoon flour; smoked beef, shredded or cut into small pieces

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 ↓

A Delicious Breakfast Dish

Ingredients

1 pint water
1 tablespoon butter
1 tablespoon flour
smoked beef, shredded or cut into small pieces

Directions

Bring 1 pint of water to a boil in a saucepan with 1 tablespoon of butter.
Once boiling, whisk in 1 tablespoon of flour to thicken the mixture.
Add the smoked beef and cook for 2 minutes.
Pour into a deep dish and serve immediately.

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).
Butter + beeftop 16% of all pairs

Smell alikemoderate

Cooked together10,847 recipes

Shared aroma: 2-furfurylthiol (coffee, roasted).
Flour + beeftop 25% of all pairs

Smell alikelow

Cooked together10,677 recipes

Shared aroma: isobutyraldehyde (malty, green).

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

Flour: Thickens the broth as it cooks, giving it a slightly fuller body.
Butter: Adds richness and fat to the broth, carrying flavor.
Smoked beef: Provides the main smoky, savory flavor and protein of the soup.

“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.