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 ↓
Beef-gravy
Ingredients
Directions
Make the roux
Heat the clarified butter in a shallow frying pan until it turns amber.
Skim off any frothy bubbles from the surface.
Add slightly-browned flour and stir continuously until smooth and thick, about 15 minutes.
Finish and serve
To use, mix a dessert spoonful of the thickened sauce with a little gravy until well combined.
If there are particles floating in the sauce, add a glass of lukewarm water and heat to bring them to the top for removal.
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
- Clarified butter
- Carries the flour and adds rich flavour and fat to the sauce.
- Slightly-browned flour
- Thickens the sauce as its starches swell when stirred into the hot fat.
- Lukewarm water
- Thins the thickened base so it becomes a pourable gravy.
The step that matters
Stirring the flour into the butter. Flour must be stirred continuously so it cooks evenly in the fat and does not lump or scorch. Smooth, well-cooked starch thickens the sauce properly.
“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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