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Sauce

Butter Sauce

A sauce made from butter, nutmeg, flour, water, lemon juice, and salt.

From an old cookbook · modernised transcription
From a historical cookbook (Internet Archive) · 7 ingredients
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Butter Sauce

Why it works: Nutmeg and lemon match in chemistry and in kitchens. They rank in the top 5% of all ingredient pairs, and cooks put them together in 11,318 recipes. Both carry beta-phellandrene, which smells minty, terpene. The science ↓

Butter Sauce

Ingredients

Directions

Make the base

  1. In a medium saucepan, melt 4 ounces of fresh butter with grated nutmeg.

  2. Add 4 ounces of sifted flour and mix well.

  3. Gradually moisten with 1 pint of cold water, stirring continuously.

  4. Bring to a boil and gently boil for 20 minutes.

Finish the sauce

  1. Quickly stir in 1 1/2 pounds of butter, adding a spoonful of cold water if it becomes oily.

  2. Finish with the juice of 1/2 lemon and salt to taste.

  3. Strain the sauce before serving.

Recipe from a historical cookbook (Internet Archive).

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.

Photo for illustrative purposes only · Contact us to use it

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.

  1. Nutmeg + lemontop 5% of all pairs
    Smell alikestrong
    Cooked together11,318 recipes

    Shared aroma: beta-phellandrene (minty, terpene).

  2. Nutmeg + flourtop 8% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together18,623 recipes

    Shared aroma: isobutyraldehyde (malty, green).

  3. Butter + flourtop 12% of all pairs
    Smell alikelow
    Cooked together124,287 recipes

    Shared aroma: isobutyraldehyde (malty, green).

  4. Butter + nutmegtop 16% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together24,377 recipes

    Shared aroma: eucalyptol (eucalyptus, herbal).

  5. Butter + lemontop 16% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together41,227 recipes

    Shared aroma: 3-hexenal (apple, fruity).

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

Flour
Thickens the water and butter into a body-rich sauce as its starch gelatinises during boiling.
Butter
Adds richness and fat that gives the sauce a smooth, creamy mouthfeel.
Cold water
Moistens the flour-butter roux so it forms a smooth, pourable liquid base.
Lemon juice
Adds acidity that brightens the rich butter flavour.

The step that matters

Quickly stir in 1 1/2 pounds of butter, adding a spoonful of cold water if it becomes oily.. Butter that melts too fast can separate and turn oily. Cold water cools the mixture and helps the fat re-emulsify into a smooth sauce.

Swap the lemon

How well each one fits the dish's main ingredients (butter, nutmeg, flour):

  1. Raisinfits better
  2. Figfits about as well
  3. Coconutfits about as well
  4. Lemonthe original

Fit is the average pairing score against butter, nutmeg, flour. Candidates are from the same food group and used in at least 100 recipes.

“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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