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 ↓
Drawn Butter Sauce
Ingredients
Directions
In a tin cup, mix the flour with 1 tablespoon of the butter.
Slowly stir in the hot water.
Place the tin cup into a pan with boiling water.
Stir until the mixture thickens or begins to boil.
Remove from heat and stir in the remaining butter and salt.
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.
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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
- Provides richness and fat, and carries flavour through the sauce.
- Flour
- Thickens the sauce as its starch swells in the hot water.
The step that matters
Stir until the mixture thickens or begins to boil. Flour starch needs heat to swell and thicken the liquid. Stirring keeps it smooth and prevents lumps from forming as it heats.
“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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