Why it works: Milk and flour are a kitchen classic. They rank in the top 14% of all ingredient pairs, and cooks put them together in 78,219 recipes. Both carry isobutyraldehyde, which smells malty, green. The science ↓
How to Use Milk
Ingredients
Directions
Make the sauce
Melt the fat in a saucepan.
Stir in the flour.
Add the cold milk quickly.
Stir constantly until the sauce boils.
Cook gently for three minutes.
Serve and vary
Pour the sauce over hot toast to make creamed toast.
Combine the sauce with sifted vegetable pulp to make cream soup, potato soup, tomato soup, or pea soup.
Double the flour and fat for a cup of milk to make a thicker sauce for creamed carrots, creamed potatoes, or creamed peas.
Use the white sauce with bits of meat, such as creamed fish, creamed minced meat on toast, or hard-cooked eggs served in cream sauce.
Add cheese to the sauce before combining it with cooked rice, hominy, or cornmeal mush.
Nutrition, whole recipe (rough)
What these numbers assume: 3 portions
| Ingredient | Portion assumed | kcal |
|---|---|---|
| Flour | 1 cup (125g) all-purpose | 455 |
| Milk | 1 cup (244ml) whole | 149 |
| Salt | 1 tsp (6g) | 0 |
One typical portion per ingredient; the recipe's quantities are not counted. A rough guide only, not for medical or dietary planning.
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.
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.
-
Milk + flourtop 14% of all pairsSmell alikelowCooked together78,219 recipes
Shared aroma: isobutyraldehyde (malty, green).
Milk and flour barely smell alike, yet cooks put them together in 78,219 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
- Milk
- Forms the liquid body of the sauce, which thickens as the starch cooks.
- Flour
- Provides starch that swells and thickens the milk into a smooth sauce.
- Fat
- Carries the flour and adds richness and a smooth mouthfeel to the sauce.
The step that matters
Add the cold milk quickly and stir constantly until the sauce boils. Flour starch must be dispersed evenly in the liquid before it swells. Adding the milk all at once and stirring keeps the flour from clumping into lumps, and the sauce thickens as the starch gelatinizes near boiling.
“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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