Why it works: Pepper and lemon match in chemistry and in kitchens. They rank in the top 3% of all ingredient pairs, and cooks put them together in 27,047 recipes. Both carry trans-2-nonenal, which smells cardboard, fatty. The science ↓
Butter Sauce
Ingredients
Directions
Make the sauce
Bring 1 pint of water to a boil in a quart saucepan.
In a bowl, mix 4 tablespoons of flour with ½ cup of cold water and strain through a sieve.
Once the water is boiling, stir the flour mixture into it until it boils again.
Remove from heat and stir in ½ pound of butter, ensuring it doesn't boil.
Finish
For asparagus, add a little pepper and the juice of ½ lemon. For lobster sauce, add ½ cup of lobster spawn and diced lobster flesh.
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.
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Pepper + lemontop 3% of all pairsSmell alikestrongCooked together27,047 recipes
Shared aroma: trans-2-nonenal (cardboard, fatty).
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Flour + buttertop 12% of all pairsSmell alikelowCooked together124,287 recipes
Shared aroma: isobutyraldehyde (malty, green).
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Butter + lemontop 16% of all pairsSmell alikemoderateCooked together41,227 recipes
Shared aroma: 3-hexenal (apple, fruity).
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Flour + lemontop 17% of all pairsSmell alikemoderateCooked together30,404 recipes
Shared aroma: isobutyraldehyde (malty, green).
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Flour + peppertop 19% of all pairsSmell alikemoderateCooked together50,459 recipes
Shared aroma: isobutyraldehyde (malty, green).
Flour and butter 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 water into a smooth, lightly bodied sauce as it boils.
- Butter
- Adds richness and a silky mouthfeel as it melts into the hot sauce.
The step that matters
Stirring in the butter off the heat. If the sauce boils after the butter goes in, the emulsion can break and the sauce turns greasy and separated. Removing it from heat first keeps the butter blended in smoothly.
“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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