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Sauce

Butter, Melted

A simple sauce made by thickening butter with flour, water, vinegar, salt, and nutmeg.

From an old cookbook · modernised transcription
From a historical cookbook (Internet Archive) · 6 ingredients
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Why it works: Flour and nutmeg are a kitchen classic. They rank in the top 8% of all ingredient pairs, and cooks put them together in 18,623 recipes. Both carry isobutyraldehyde, which smells malty, green. The science ↓

Butter, Melted

Ingredients

Directions

Make the sauce

  1. Mix the flour and water to a smooth batter, rubbing out any lumps.

  2. Put the batter in a saucepan with the butter, salt, vinegar, and nutmeg.

  3. Heat gently, stirring constantly until thickened, but do not let it boil.

Serve

  1. Serve immediately.

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. Flour + nutmegtop 8% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together18,623 recipes

    Shared aroma: isobutyraldehyde (malty, green).

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

    Shared aroma: isobutyraldehyde (malty, green).

  3. Butter + nutmegtop 16% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together24,377 recipes

    Shared aroma: eucalyptol (eucalyptus, herbal).

  4. Butter + vinegartop 23% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together13,513 recipes

    Shared aroma: isoamyl acetate (banana, pear).

  5. Vinegar + nutmegtop 25% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together2,864 recipes

    Shared aroma: 4'-methylacetophenone (bitter almond).

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, giving the sauce its smooth, silky body.
Flour
Thickens the sauce as its starch swells with heat, giving it body.
White vinegar
Adds a sharp acidity that brightens the rich butter flavor.

The step that matters

Heat gently and do not let it boil. Flour thickens as its starch swells with heat, but boiling can break the emulsion of butter and water, making the sauce greasy or grainy. Constant stirring prevents lumps and scorching on the pan base.

Swap the nutmeg

How well each one fits the dish's main ingredients (butter, flour, vinegar):

  1. Jalapenofits better
  2. Tarragonfits better
  3. Capersfits better
  4. Nutmegthe original

Fit is the average pairing score against butter, flour, vinegar. 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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