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 ↓
Butter Sauce
Ingredients
Directions
Make the sauce
Melt the butter in a saucepan.
Stir in the flour to form a roux.
Gradually add the boiling water, stirring constantly until smooth.
Cook until the sauce thickens.
Serve
Serve warm.
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 fat and richness, and forms the base of the roux.
- Flour
- Thickens the sauce by swelling with liquid once cooked into the butter roux.
- Boiling water
- Forms the liquid that the roux thickens into a smooth sauce.
The step that matters
Gradually add the boiling water, stirring constantly. Adding liquid slowly while stirring lets the starch in the flour disperse evenly, preventing lumps. Starch thickens as it heats, so the sauce should be cooked until it thickens.
“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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