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Melted Butter

A simple butter melt with optional flavorings such as anchovy sauce.

From an old cookbook · modernised transcription
From a historical cookbook (Internet Archive) · 5 ingredients
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Melted Butter

Why it works: Flour and capers match in chemistry and in kitchens. They rank in the top 6% of all ingredient pairs, and cooks put them together in 1,024 recipes. Both carry isobutyraldehyde, which smells malty, green. The science ↓

Melted Butter

Ingredients

Directions

Prepare

  1. Mix the water, flour, and salt in a saucepan until smooth.

  2. In a separate bowl, work out all buttermilk from the butter.

Make the melted butter

  1. Heat the water and flour mixture over medium heat until it boils.

  2. Stir in the butter until melted, then remove from heat.

  3. Add optional flavorings as desired, especially anchovy sauce for fish.

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. Flour + caperstop 6% of all pairs
    Smell alikestrong
    Cooked together1,024 recipes

    Shared aroma: isobutyraldehyde (malty, green).

  2. Flour + buttertop 12% of all pairs
    Smell alikelow
    Cooked together124,287 recipes

    Shared aroma: isobutyraldehyde (malty, green).

  3. Butter + caperstop 16% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together1,637 recipes

    Shared aroma: isobutyraldehyde (malty, green).

Flour and butter 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

Flour
Thickens the water into a light, smooth base that gives the butter body.
Butter
Supplies rich fat and flavor, and melts into the liquid to make it creamy.

The step that matters

Stir in the butter until melted, then remove from heat. Butter is an emulsion of fat, water, and milk solids. Overheating can split the fat from the liquid and scorch the milk solids, so the sauce turns greasy or brown. Removing it from heat as soon as the butter melts keeps it smooth.

Swap the capers

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

  1. Jalapenofits better
  2. Capersthe original
  3. Nutmegfits less well
  4. Cinnamonfits less well

Fit is the average pairing score against flour, butter. 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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