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Broccoli with Brown Sauce

A simple dish of steamed broccoli topped with a brown sauce made from butter, flour, and beef broth.

From an old cookbook · modernised transcription
From a historical cookbook (Internet Archive) · 6 ingredients
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Why it works: Broccoli and pepper are a kitchen classic. They rank in the top 9% of all ingredient pairs, and cooks put them together in 2,747 recipes. Both carry 4'-methylacetophenone, which smells bitter almond. The science ↓

Broccoli with Brown Sauce

Ingredients

Directions

The book gives no cooking times; the times in the steps were added in transcription, so check for doneness rather than trusting the clock.

Prepare the broccoli

  1. Steam the broccoli until tender, about 5-7 minutes.

Make the brown sauce

  1. In a saucepan, melt the butter over medium heat.

  2. Stir in the flour and cook for 1 minute.

  3. Gradually whisk in the beef broth until smooth.

  4. Season with salt and pepper.

Serve

  1. Serve the broccoli topped with the brown sauce.

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. Broccoli + peppertop 9% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together2,747 recipes

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

  2. Beef + peppertop 10% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together18,971 recipes

    Shared aroma: 2-isopropyl-3-methoxypyrazine (earthy, pea).

  3. Broccoli + flourtop 11% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together1,287 recipes

    Shared aroma: isobutyraldehyde (malty, green).

  4. Butter + flourtop 12% of all pairs
    Smell alikelow
    Cooked together124,287 recipes

    Shared aroma: isobutyraldehyde (malty, green).

  5. Butter + beeftop 16% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together10,847 recipes

    Shared aroma: 2-furfurylthiol (coffee, roasted).

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

Broccoli
Forms the main body of the dish and cooks to a tender texture when steamed.
Butter
Provides fat and rich flavor as the base for the sauce.
Flour
Thickens the sauce when cooked with the melted butter into a roux.
Beef broth
Supplies liquid and savory flavor that forms the body of the sauce.

The step that matters

Cooking the flour in the butter. Cooking the flour briefly in melted butter forms a roux, which cooks out raw starch taste and lets the flour thicken the broth evenly. Adding broth too quickly or without whisking can leave lumps.

Swap the broccoli

How well each one fits the dish's main ingredients (butter, flour, beef, pepper):

  1. Potatofits better
  2. Chivefits better
  3. Leekfits better
  4. Broccolithe original

Fit is the average pairing score against butter, flour, beef, pepper. 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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