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Sauce

Melted Butter

A butter sauce thickened with flour and water, seasoned with salt and pepper, optionally finished with vinegar or lemon juice.

From an old cookbook · modernised transcription
From a historical cookbook (Internet Archive) · 6 ingredients
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Melted Butter

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 ↓

Melted Butter

Ingredients

Directions

Make the sauce

  1. In a quart-sized saucepan, combine the flour and ⅙ cup of the butter to form a paste.

  2. Add the salt and pepper, then gradually stir in the boiling water in three parts.

  3. Cook over heat, stirring until the mixture boils and thickens slightly.

  4. Add the remaining butter, cut into small pieces, one piece at a time, stirring until fully dissolved.

  5. If the sauce is too thick, add a small teacup of hot water while stirring.

Finish and serve

  1. For serving with fried soles, stir in the vinegar or lemon juice 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.

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. Butter + flourtop 12% of all pairs
    Smell alikelow
    Cooked together124,287 recipes

    Shared aroma: isobutyraldehyde (malty, green).

  2. Pepper + vinegartop 14% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together27,814 recipes

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

  3. Flour + peppertop 19% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together50,459 recipes

    Shared aroma: isobutyraldehyde (malty, green).

  4. Butter + peppertop 21% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together85,593 recipes

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

  5. Butter + vinegartop 23% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together13,513 recipes

    Shared aroma: isoamyl acetate (banana, pear).

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
Adds richness, fat and a smooth, velvety body to the sauce.
Fine flour
Thickens the sauce as its starch swells in the hot water.

The step that matters

Adding the remaining butter. Adding the butter in small pieces, one at a time, and stirring until melted helps it blend into a smooth emulsion. Dropping in large lumps or letting the sauce overheat can make the fat separate and look greasy.

“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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