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Sauce

Melted Butter

A simple sauce made by melting butter with flour, water, salt, pepper, vinegar, and optional nutmeg.

From an old cookbook · modernised transcription
From a historical cookbook (Internet Archive) · 8 ingredients
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Melted Butter

Why it works: Pepper and nutmeg match in chemistry and in kitchens. They rank in the top 7% of all ingredient pairs, and cooks put them together in 13,015 recipes. Both carry 4'-methylacetophenone, which smells bitter almond. The science ↓

Melted Butter

Ingredients

Directions

Make the sauce

  1. In a saucepan, combine the softened butter and flour, mixing well with a wooden spoon until smooth.

  2. Gradually add the water while stirring, then season with salt and pepper.

  3. Place the saucepan over medium heat, stirring continuously until just before boiling.

Finish and serve

  1. Remove from heat and stir in the brown vinegar and additional butter until melted.

  2. If desired, grate a little nutmeg into the sauce.

  3. The sauce should lightly coat the back of a spoon and be transparent, not pasty.

  4. If needed, strain through a sieve.

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. Pepper + nutmegtop 7% of all pairs
    Smell alikestrong
    Cooked together13,015 recipes

    Shared aroma: 4'-methylacetophenone (bitter almond).

  2. Flour + nutmegtop 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. Pepper + vinegartop 14% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together27,814 recipes

    Shared aroma: 4'-methylacetophenone (bitter almond).

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

    Shared aroma: eucalyptol (eucalyptus, herbal).

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
Adds richness and smooth body, and carries flavour through the sauce.
Flour
Thickens the sauce as it heats, giving it body and a lightly coating texture.
Brown vinegar
Adds a sharp acidity that brightens the rich butter.

The step that matters

Stirring over medium heat until just before boiling. Flour thickens only as its starch heats in liquid, and stirring prevents lumps and scorching on the pan base. Boiling too hard can make the sauce thin or grainy, so stop at the point just before it boils.

Swap the nutmeg

The recipe marks nutmeg as optional. How well each one fits the dish's main ingredients (butter, flour, pepper, vinegar):

  1. Tarragonfits better
  2. Parsleyfits better
  3. Turmericfits about as well
  4. Nutmegthe original

Fit is the average pairing score against butter, flour, pepper, vinegar. 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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