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Sauce

Burnt Butter

A sauce made by browning butter, adding vinegar, and seasoning with pepper and salt, served with boiled skate.

From an old cookbook · modernised transcription
From a historical cookbook (Internet Archive) · 4 ingredients
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Why it works: Vinegar and pepper are a kitchen classic. They rank in the top 14% of all ingredient pairs, and cooks put them together in 27,814 recipes. Both carry 4'-methylacetophenone, which smells bitter almond. The science ↓

Burnt Butter

Ingredients

Directions

Brown the butter

  1. Melt the butter in a frying pan over low heat.

  2. Stir slowly until the butter turns dark brown.

Finish and serve

  1. Add the vinegar and season with black pepper and salt.

  2. Serve with boiled skate and garnish with crisped parsley.

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. Vinegar + peppertop 14% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together27,814 recipes

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

  2. Butter + peppertop 21% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together85,593 recipes

    Shared aroma: trans-2-nonenal (cardboard, fatty).

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

    Shared aroma: isoamyl acetate (banana, pear).

Ranks compare each pair with 20,000 random ingredient pairs on CompKitchen. How we score pairs

What each ingredient does

Butter
Provides the fat that carries the flavour, and its milk solids brown to give a nutty aroma.
Vinegar
Adds acidity that sharpens and balances the rich, browned butter.

The step that matters

Stir slowly until the butter turns dark brown. Milk solids in the butter toast as it heats, and they go from nutty to bitter within seconds. Low heat and constant slow stirring let the solids brown evenly, so the cook can stop the pan before the butter burns.

“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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