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Sauce

Melted Butter Sauce

A simple sauce made by melting butter, adding flour, and gradually stirring in cold water or fish stock, seasoned with salt and nutmeg.

From an old cookbook · modernised transcription
From a historical cookbook (Internet Archive) · 5 ingredients
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Melted Butter Sauce

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 ↓

Melted Butter Sauce

Ingredients

Directions

  1. Melt the butter in a saucepan.

  2. Stir in the flour.

  3. Gradually add the cold water (use fish stock if serving with fish).

  4. Stir and bring gently to a boil.

  5. Add a pinch of salt and a little less than a pinch of grated nutmeg.

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.

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.

  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).

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
Adds richness and flavor, and carries fat that gives the sauce a smooth mouthfeel.
Flour
Thickens the sauce as its starch swells and sets when heated in the liquid.

The step that matters

Adding the cold water gradually and bringing the sauce to a boil. Adding the cold water gradually while stirring keeps the flour dispersed so lumps do not form. Bringing the sauce gently to a boil lets the starch swell fully, which thickens it.

Swap the nutmeg

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

  1. Jalapenofits better
  2. Capersfits better
  3. Nutmegthe original
  4. Cinnamonfits about as well

Fit is the average pairing score against butter, flour. 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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