Why it works: Butter and flour are a kitchen classic. They rank in the top 12% of all ingredient pairs, and 124,287 recipes mention both. Both carry isobutyraldehyde, which smells malty, green. The science ↓
The Fairy Ring Champignon
Ingredients
Directions
Make the sauce
Put a tablespoonful of butter in a saucepan.
When it bubbles, add a teaspoonful of flour and cook the flour a few minutes, but not brown it.
Add a half cupful of water or milk, stir until smooth, and add a pint of the fairy ring mushrooms.
Simmer for fifteen minutes, season with salt and pepper.
Serve
Pour the sauce over softened buttered toast or over meat.
If serving with meat, use water to make the sauce; if served on toast, use milk.
Alternatively, sauté the mushrooms in a little butter and serve on softened toast.
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 aroma chemistry they share, and how many recipes mention both.
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Butter + flourtop 12% of all pairsAroma overlaplowMentioned together124,287 recipes
Shared aroma: isobutyraldehyde (malty, green).
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Flour + peppertop 19% of all pairsAroma overlapmoderateMentioned together50,459 recipes
Shared aroma: isobutyraldehyde (malty, green).
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Butter + peppertop 21% of all pairsAroma overlapmoderateMentioned together85,593 recipes
Shared aroma: trans-2-nonenal (cardboard, fatty).
Butter and flour share little aroma chemistry, yet 124,287 recipes mention both: they likely 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
- Fairy ring mushrooms (in the method)
- Provide the main flavour and bulk of the sauce.
- Flour
- Thickens the butter and liquid into a smooth sauce when cooked briefly.
- Butter
- Carries flavour and forms the base for cooking the flour.
The step that matters
Cooking the flour without browning it. Flour must cook a few minutes in the butter to lose its raw taste and thicken well, but browning changes the colour and flavour of 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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