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 ↓
White Roux, or White Thickening for Sauces and Made Dishes
Ingredients
Directions
Make the roux
Melt the butter gradually over a low heat.
Dredge in enough flour to create a thin paste.
Stir continuously for 15 minutes.
Store
Transfer to a small jar for storage.
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.
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Butter + flourtop 12% of all pairsSmell alikelowCooked together124,287 recipes
Shared aroma: isobutyraldehyde (malty, green).
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
- Melts to form the fat that coats flour particles and carries flavour.
- Flour
- Its starch thickens the mixture once it is cooked with the fat.
The step that matters
Stir continuously over low heat. Constant stirring spreads heat evenly and stops the flour from scorching on the base of the pan. It also cooks out the raw starch taste before the roux is stored.
“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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