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Dessert

White Roux

A roux made by melting butter and adding flour, used for white sauces.

From an old cookbook · modernised transcription
From a historical cookbook (Internet Archive) · 2 ingredients
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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 ↓

White Roux

Ingredients

Directions

Make the roux

  1. Melt the butter in a saucepan over low heat.

  2. Gradually add the flour, stirring constantly until well combined.

  3. Do not allow the mixture to color; it should remain pale.

Use and store

  1. Use the roux for white sauces like Bechamel or Cream.

  2. Store any unused roux in a glass or earthenware jar in a cool place for up to 6 months.

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.

  1. Butter + flourtop 12% of all pairs
    Smell alikelow
    Cooked 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 that coats the flour and carries flavor while keeping the roux smooth.
Flour
Starch that swells when heated in fat and thickens the sauce it is later whisked into.

The step that matters

Keep the roux pale. Cooking the roux too long or too hot browns the flour, which adds color and a toasted flavor that changes the look and taste of white sauces. Low heat and constant stirring keep the starch cooking gently without coloring.

“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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