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Sauce

Melted Butter, &C.

A simple sauce made by melting butter, adding flour, and gradually stirring in hot water, optionally finished with parsley.

From an old cookbook · modernised transcription
From a historical cookbook (Internet Archive) · 4 ingredients
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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 ↓

Melted Butter, &C.

Ingredients

Directions

Make the sauce

  1. Melt the butter in a saucepan.

  2. Gradually stir in the flour.

  3. Add the hot water gradually.

  4. Stir for a few minutes over the heat, but do not allow to boil.

  5. Add the chopped parsley (for parsley butter).

Finish and serve

  1. Stir for 1-2 minutes.

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

    Shared aroma: isobutyraldehyde (malty, green).

  2. Flour + parsleytop 12% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together16,675 recipes

    Shared aroma: isobutyraldehyde (malty, green).

  3. Butter + parsleytop 15% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together28,563 recipes

    Shared aroma: trans-2-hexenal (green, leafy).

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
Provides fat and rich flavour, and helps the sauce feel smooth and glossy.
Flour
Thickens the liquid as its starch swells with heat, giving the sauce body.

The step that matters

Stir over heat without letting it boil. As the sauce warms, the flour's starch swells and thickens it gradually. Vigorous boiling can scorch the base, make the texture grainy, and cause the butter to separate, so gentle heat and constant stirring keep it smooth.

Swap the parsley

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

  1. Jalapenofits better
  2. Capersfits better
  3. Nutmegfits better
  4. Parsleythe original

Fit is the average pairing score against butter, flour. 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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