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Sauce

Maitre d'Hotel Butter

A buttery herb sauce made with butter, flour, stock, parsley, sweet herbs, chives, salt, pepper, lemon or tarragon vinegar, and oil.

From an old cookbook · modernised transcription
From a historical cookbook (Internet Archive) · 10 ingredients
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Why it works: Butter and flour are a kitchen classic. They rank in the top 6% of all ingredient pairs, and 122,858 recipes mention both. Both carry isobutyraldehyde, which smells malty, green. The science ↓

The recipe

Ingredients

Contains: milk, wheat (auto-detected from the ingredients and method; we can miss things, so check labels)

Directions

  1. Melt the butter in a saucepan.

  2. Mix the butter with the flour and enough cold water to make a smooth paste.

  3. Add the white stock and bring to a boil.

  4. Stir in the chopped parsley, sweet herbs, minced chives, salt, pepper, lemon juice or tarragon vinegar, and pure oil, then mix well and 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 aroma chemistry they share, and how many recipes mention both.

  1. Butter + flourtop 6% of all pairs
    Aroma overlaplow
    Mentioned together122,858 recipes

    Shared aroma: isobutyraldehyde (malty, green).

  2. Parsley + lemontop 1% of all pairs
    Aroma overlapstrong
    Mentioned together14,036 recipes

    Shared aroma: beta-phellandrene (minty, terpene).

  3. Parsley + peppertop 2% of all pairs
    Aroma overlapstrong
    Mentioned together34,118 recipes

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

  4. Pepper + lemontop 2% of all pairs
    Aroma overlapstrong
    Mentioned together27,039 recipes

    Shared aroma: 2-nonenal (fatty, green).

  5. Parsley + chivetop 4% of all pairs
    Aroma overlapstrong
    Mentioned together2,150 recipes

    Shared aroma: coumarin (sweet, hay).

Butter and flour share little aroma chemistry, yet 122,858 recipes mention both: they likely 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 sauce and carries flavour, giving it a rich mouthfeel.
Flour
Thickens the sauce into a smooth, coating body when mixed with the butter.
White stock
Provides the liquid base that the flour thickens into the sauce.
Lemon juice or tarragon vinegar
Adds acidity that brightens the rich butter and balances its flavour.

The step that matters

Making the smooth paste. Flour must be fully blended with the butter and cold water before hot liquid goes in. Adding it lumpy or all at once lets starch clump, leaving a sauce with lumps rather than a smooth, even thickness.

Flavor stand-ins for the chive

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

  1. Carrotbetter flavor fit
  2. Potatobetter flavor fit
  3. Capsicumbetter flavor fit
  4. Chivethe original

Fit is the average pairing score against butter, flour, parsley, pepper, lemon. Candidates are from the same food group and used in at least 100 recipes. This compares flavor only: it does not check the job the ingredient does in the dish (bulk, moisture, acidity, structure).

“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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