Why it works: Butter and flour 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 ↓
Receipt for Melting Butter
Ingredients
Directions
Put the butter into a very clean saucepan.
Add the water and a little flour.
Stir over a clear fire until it boils.
Pour into a tureen and serve.
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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Butter + flourtop 12% of all pairsSmell alikelowCooked together124,287 recipes
Shared aroma: isobutyraldehyde (malty, green).
Butter and flour 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
- Butter
- Melts to form the rich, fatty base of the sauce.
- Flour
- Thickens the melted butter and water into a smooth, lightly bound sauce.
The step that matters
Stir over a clear fire until it boils. Stirring keeps the flour evenly dispersed so it cannot form lumps, and the sauce must reach a boil so the starch thickens fully.
“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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