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Sauce

Black Butter. Beurre Noir.

A browned butter sauce flavored with vinegar, salt, and pepper.

From an old cookbook · modernised transcription
From a historical cookbook (Internet Archive) · 4 ingredients
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Why it works: Vinegar and pepper are a kitchen classic. They rank in the top 14% of all ingredient pairs, and cooks put them together in 27,814 recipes. Both carry 4'-methylacetophenone, which smells bitter almond. The science ↓

Black Butter. Beurre Noir.

Ingredients

Directions

Brown the butter

  1. Warm the butter in a frying pan until dark brown.

  2. Pour the butter into a basin and let it cool.

Finish the sauce

  1. Cook the vinegar in the same frying pan until reduced.

  2. Add the reduced vinegar to the cold brown butter and warm in a saucepan.

  3. Season with salt and pepper, then serve.

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. Vinegar + peppertop 14% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together27,814 recipes

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

  2. Butter + peppertop 21% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together85,593 recipes

    Shared aroma: trans-2-nonenal (cardboard, fatty).

  3. Butter + vinegartop 23% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together13,513 recipes

    Shared aroma: isoamyl acetate (banana, pear).

Ranks compare each pair with 20,000 random ingredient pairs on CompKitchen. How we score pairs

What each ingredient does

Butter
Provides the fat and, once browned, the nutty, toasted flavour of the sauce.
Vinegar
Adds sharp acidity that balances the rich, toasted butter.

The step that matters

Warm the butter in a frying pan until dark brown.. The milk solids in butter toast as the water boils off, giving nutty flavour and colour. Past that point the solids scorch and turn bitter, so watch closely and stop as soon as the butter is dark brown.

“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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