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
Ingredients
Directions
Prepare
Cut the butter into small pieces and place them in a small saucepan with cold water.
Add 1 ounce of butter for every tablespoon of water.
Make the sauce
While stirring with one hand, sprinkle in flour from a dredger with the other hand to avoid lumps.
Take the saucepan to the heat and continue stirring until the butter is thoroughly melted.
Once it boils, it should have the consistency of rich cream.
If it separates, add a little cold water and pour it in and out of a basin several times to recover it.
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.
Photo for illustrative purposes only · Contact us to use it
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
- Provides fat and richness, and gives the sauce its smooth, creamy body when melted.
- Flour
- Thickens the liquid as it heats, giving the sauce body and helping prevent separation.
- Cold water
- Helps the butter emulsify and melt evenly, keeping the sauce from splitting.
The step that matters
Adding the flour while stirring. Flour dropped in slowly while stirring disperses evenly and prevents lumps, because starch granules clump when they hit hot liquid in a mass. Constant stirring keeps the butter and water emulsified as it melts.
“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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