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Sauce

Brown Roux

A brown roux is a mixture of butter and flour cooked until light brown.

From an old cookbook · modernised transcription
From a historical cookbook (Internet Archive) · 2 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 ↓

Brown Roux

Ingredients

Directions

  1. Melt the butter over low heat.

  2. Skim off any impurities and let it settle.

  3. Pour the clear butter into a clean frying pan.

  4. Gradually add the flour to the butter, shaking the pan often.

  5. Stir constantly until the mixture turns a light brown color.

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).

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
Carries the flour and adds richness and flavor as the roux cooks.
Flour
Thickens the mixture and, as it toasts, adds nutty color and flavor.

The step that matters

Stir constantly until the mixture turns a light brown color.. Flour can scorch quickly over heat, and constant stirring keeps it cooking evenly. Stopping at light brown keeps the roux's thickening power and mild flavor, while overcooking reduces thickening and adds a burnt taste.

“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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