Name: Drawn Butter, or Melted Butter
Ingredients: ¼ pound butter; 2 teaspoons flour; 5 tablespoons cold water; Chopped eggs (optional, for fish); Nasturtium or capers (optional, for fish); Oysters (optional, for boiled fowl)

Why it works: Flour and capers match in chemistry and in kitchens. They rank in the top 6% of all ingredient pairs, and cooks put them together in 1,024 recipes. Both carry isobutyraldehyde, which smells malty, green. The science ↓

Drawn Butter, or Melted Butter

Ingredients

¼ pound butter
2 teaspoons flour
5 tablespoons cold water
Chopped eggs (optional, for fish)
Nasturtium or capers (optional, for fish)
Oysters (optional, for boiled fowl)

Directions

Make the butter sauce

Rub 2 teaspoons of flour into ¼ pound of butter.
Add 5 tablespoons of cold water.
Set the mixture into boiling water.
Let it melt.
Heat until it begins to simmer.
Remove from heat.

Finish for fish or fowl

For fish, add chopped eggs.
For fish, add nasturtium or capers.
For boiled fowl, add oysters while simmering.
For boiled fowl, heat through.

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.

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.

Flour + caperstop 6% of all pairs

Smell alikestrong

Cooked together1,024 recipes

Shared aroma: isobutyraldehyde (malty, green).
Fish + oystertop 9% of all pairs

Smell alikemoderate

Cooked together496 recipes

Shared aroma: (z)-4-heptenal (biscuit, cream).
Butter + fishtop 12% of all pairs

Smell alikemoderate

Cooked together4,488 recipes

Shared aroma: (z)-4-heptenal (biscuit, cream).
Butter + flourtop 12% of all pairs

Smell alikelow

Cooked together124,287 recipes

Shared aroma: isobutyraldehyde (malty, green).
Butter + oystertop 12% of all pairs

Smell alikemoderate

Cooked together8,184 recipes

Shared aroma: 2,6-nonadienal (cucumber, 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: Provides fat and rich flavour as the body of the sauce.
Flour: Thickens the melted butter and helps it hold together as a smooth sauce.

The step that matters

Heat until it begins to simmer. Once the mixture is hot enough to simmer, it should be removed from heat promptly, since overheating can cause the butter emulsion to separate and turn greasy.

“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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Drawn Butter, or Melted Butter