Why it works: Butter and milk are a kitchen classic. They rank in the top 7% of all ingredient pairs, and 81,283 recipes mention both. Both carry (z)-4-heptenal, which smells biscuit, cream. The science ↓
Creamed Dishes
Ingredients
Directions
Make the sauce
Use the double pan with water.
Make a white sauce by putting in the chafing dish one tablespoonful of butter; let it bubble, then stir in one tablespoonful of flour; let it cook a few minutes, but not brown; then add a cupful of milk slowly, stirring all the time until it is a little thickened.
Season with pepper and salt.
Assemble and serve
Lay in carefully thick slices of hard‑boiled egg.
As soon as they are heated, place them on slices of toast softened with hot water, and pour the thickened sauce over them.
Variations
For chicken or meat, season the sauce with a few drops of onion‑juice, a little chopped celery if convenient, salt, pepper, and paprika.
Have the chicken in good‑sized pieces, or meat in thin slices, and leave them in the sauce only long enough to become well heated; canned chicken or turkey may be used.
Any kind of meat can be minced and used in this way, in which case the sauce should be made with half milk and half stock.
If stock is not at hand, extract of beef (one teaspoonful to a cupful of boiling water) may be substituted.
With chicken or oysters, the yolk of an egg is added just before it is removed, which makes it "a la poulette."
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 + milktop 7% of all pairsAroma overlapmoderateMentioned together81,283 recipes
Shared aroma: (z)-4-heptenal (biscuit, cream).
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Butter + flourtop 12% of all pairsAroma overlaplowMentioned together124,287 recipes
Shared aroma: isobutyraldehyde (malty, green).
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Flour + milktop 14% of all pairsAroma overlaplowMentioned together78,219 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
- Butter
- Melts with flour to form the roux that thickens the sauce.
- Flour
- Thickens the butter and milk into a white sauce as it cooks.
- Milk
- Forms the liquid base of the sauce, which thickens as it heats.
- Hard-boiled egg (in the method)
- Provides the main filling, adding body and richness to the sauce.
The step that matters
Cook the flour and butter without browning. Cooking the roux a few minutes removes raw flour taste and lets it thicken smoothly; browning would darken the sauce and change its flavor. Stirring constantly prevents 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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