Why it works: Wheat and coconut match in chemistry and in kitchens. They rank in the top 9% of all ingredient pairs, and cooks put them together in 188 recipes. Both carry decanal, which smells soap, orange peel. The science ↓
White Sauce
Ingredients
Directions
In a bowl, mix the flour or cornstarch with a little cold water until smooth.
Slowly add a few spoonfuls of hot water to the mixture, stirring to remove lumps.
Gradually add the mixture to the boiling water, stirring constantly for at least five minutes.
If using a double boiler or steam cooker, cook until there is no raw taste.
If lumpy, pour through a wire strainer.
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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Wheat + coconuttop 9% of all pairsSmell alikestrongCooked together188 recipes
Shared aroma: decanal (soap, orange peel).
Ranks compare each pair with 20,000 random ingredient pairs on CompKitchen. How we score pairs
What each ingredient does
- Whole wheat flour or cornstarch
- Thickens the water into a sauce as its starch swells when heated.
- Coconut butter or vegetable oil
- Adds fat, giving the sauce a richer mouthfeel and smoother texture.
The step that matters
Stirring while adding the thickener. Starch clumps if it hits hot liquid unevenly. Mixing it smooth with cold water first and then stirring constantly as it goes into boiling water keeps the starch dispersed so it thickens evenly without 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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