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Sauce

Butter Sauce

A sauce made by whisking butter, flour, and lemon juice, then adding boiling water and seasoning with cayenne and pepper.

From an old cookbook · modernised transcription
By Tracy, Suzanne. [from old catalog] · From a historical cookbook (Internet Archive) · 7 ingredients
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Butter Sauce

Why it works: Lemon and pepper 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

  1. Add a dash of cayenne.

  2. Cream the butter.

  3. Add the flour and beat together.

  4. Add the boiling water gradually, stirring constantly.

  5. Let it come to a boil.

  6. Add lemon juice and pepper, and serve.

Nutrition, whole recipe (rough)

581Calories
14 gProtein
13 gFat
101 gCarbs

Counts 5 of 6 ingredients. The other 1 aren't in our nutrition table and add nothing above, so the real totals are higher.

What these numbers assume: 5 portions
IngredientPortion assumedkcal
Flour1 cup (125g) all-purpose455
Butter1 tbsp (14g)102
Lemonjuice of 1 lemon (48ml)12
Cayenne1 tsp (1.8g)6
Black Pepper1 tsp ground (2.3g)6
Waternot in our table0

One typical portion per ingredient; the recipe's quantities are not counted. A rough guide only, not for medical or dietary planning.

By Tracy, Suzanne. [from old catalog]. 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. See the original page.

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. Lemon + peppertop 3% of all pairs
    Smell alikestrong
    Cooked together27,047 recipes

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

  2. Flour + buttertop 12% of all pairs
    Smell alikelow
    Cooked together124,287 recipes

    Shared aroma: isobutyraldehyde (malty, green).

  3. Butter + lemontop 16% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together41,227 recipes

    Shared aroma: 3-hexenal (apple, fruity).

  4. Flour + lemontop 17% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together30,404 recipes

    Shared aroma: isobutyraldehyde (malty, green).

  5. Flour + peppertop 19% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked 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 sauce as its starch swells and sets in the hot liquid.
Butter
Adds fat for richness and a smooth, silky mouthfeel.
Boiling water
Forms the liquid base that the flour thickens into a sauce.
Lemon juice
Adds acidity that brightens the flavor and cuts the richness of the butter.

The step that matters

Add the boiling water gradually, stirring constantly. Flour clumps when liquid is poured in all at once. Adding the water slowly while stirring lets each starch granule disperse and swell evenly, giving a smooth sauce instead of 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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Drawn 103Melted 103Lemon 58Parsley 30Black 23Brown 13 See all 80 →

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