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 ↓
Egg Sauce
Ingredients
Directions
Rub together the butter and flour in a saucepan.
Pour in the boiling water and let it boil once.
Chop the hard-boiled eggs finely and pour the sauce over them.
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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Butter + flourtop 12% of all pairsSmell alikelowCooked together124,287 recipes
Shared aroma: isobutyraldehyde (malty, green).
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Flour + eggtop 15% of all pairsSmell alikelowCooked together106,462 recipes
Shared aroma: isobutyraldehyde (malty, green).
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Butter + eggtop 17% of all pairsSmell alikemoderateCooked together118,967 recipes
Shared aroma: decanal (soap, orange peel).
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
- Enriches the sauce with fat, giving it a rich flavor and smooth mouthfeel.
- Flour
- Thickens the butter and water into a smooth, lightly bodied sauce.
- Hard-boiled eggs
- Provide the main substance and texture, with their chopped whites and yolks absorbing the sauce.
The step that matters
Rubbing the butter and flour together. Mixing the flour thoroughly into the butter coats the starch granules so they disperse evenly when water is added, preventing lumps in the sauce.
“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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