Why it works: Flour and butter 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 ↓
Vinegar Sauce
Ingredients
Directions
Make the sauce
Mix flour, sugar, and salt in a bowl.
Stir in the vinegar and cook until clear.
Add butter and hot water, then stir.
Serve
Pour the sauce over sliced beets.
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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Flour + buttertop 12% of all pairsSmell alikelowCooked together124,287 recipes
Shared aroma: isobutyraldehyde (malty, green).
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Sugar + flourtop 15% of all pairsSmell alikemoderateCooked together92,116 recipes
Shared aroma: phenylacetaldehyde (hawthorne, honey).
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Vinegar + sugartop 15% of all pairsSmell alikemoderateCooked together20,806 recipes
Shared aroma: beta-damascenone (apple, rose).
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Sugar + buttertop 17% of all pairsSmell alikemoderateCooked together98,233 recipes
Shared aroma: guaiacol (smoky, sweet).
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Vinegar + buttertop 23% of all pairsSmell alikemoderateCooked together13,513 recipes
Shared aroma: isoamyl acetate (banana, pear).
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
- Vinegar
- Provides the sour, acidic flavor that balances the sweetness of the sugar.
- Sugar
- Adds sweetness to offset the sharpness of the vinegar.
- Flour
- Thickens the sauce as it cooks with the liquid.
- Butter
- Adds richness and a smooth, glossy finish to the sauce.
The step that matters
Cook the vinegar mixture until clear. Flour thickens only once heated, so cooking until the sauce turns clear shows the starch has gelatinized and the sauce will be smooth rather than pasty or cloudy.
“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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