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 ↓
Stewed Pioeohs
Ingredients
Directions
Prepare
Clean and cut the pioeohs into quarters.
Wash and season with pepper and coarse sea salt.
Stew
Place them in a stew pan with enough water to nearly cover them.
Add a piece of butter mixed with a little flour.
Let them stew until tender.
If the gravy is too thin, add more butter rubbed in flour and stew for a few more minutes.
Serve
Adjust seasoning if necessary and serve hot in a covered dish.
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.
-
Butter + flourtop 12% of all pairsSmell alikelowCooked together124,287 recipes
Shared aroma: isobutyraldehyde (malty, green).
-
Pepper + flourtop 19% of all pairsSmell alikemoderateCooked together50,459 recipes
Shared aroma: isobutyraldehyde (malty, green).
-
Pepper + buttertop 21% of all pairsSmell alikemoderateCooked together85,593 recipes
Shared aroma: trans-2-nonenal (cardboard, fatty).
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
- Enriches the gravy and adds richness, while flour mixed with it thickens the liquid.
- Flour
- Thickens the cooking liquid into a gravy as it stews with the butter.
The step that matters
Thickening the gravy. Flour needs to be worked into butter before it meets the hot liquid so it disperses without lumps and thickens evenly. If the gravy is still thin, a second addition of butter rubbed in flour helps it thicken further.
“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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