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Sauce

Melted Butter

A roux made by melting butter, adding flour, and cooking with cold liquid.

From an old cookbook · modernised transcription
From a historical cookbook (Internet Archive) · 4 ingredients
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Melted Butter

Why it works: Butter and milk are a kitchen classic. They rank in the top 7% of all ingredient pairs, and cooks put them together in 81,283 recipes. Both carry (z)-4-heptenal, which smells biscuit, cream. The science ↓

Melted Butter

Ingredients

Directions

  1. In a saucepan, melt the butter.

  2. Stir in the flour until well combined.

  3. Gradually add the cold water or milk while stirring continuously.

  4. Bring the mixture to a boil.

  5. Let it boil for 2 minutes to cook the flour.

  6. Add the pinch of salt and stir well.

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. Butter + milktop 7% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together81,283 recipes

    Shared aroma: (z)-4-heptenal (biscuit, cream).

  2. Flour + buttertop 12% of all pairs
    Smell alikelow
    Cooked together124,287 recipes

    Shared aroma: isobutyraldehyde (malty, green).

  3. Flour + milktop 14% of all pairs
    Smell alikelow
    Cooked together78,219 recipes

    Shared aroma: isobutyraldehyde (malty, green).

Flour and butter 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

Flour
Thickens the liquid as its starch swells when heated, giving the sauce body.
Butter
Coats the flour particles and carries flavor, giving the sauce richness.
Milk
Forms the liquid base that the thickened starch sets into a smooth sauce.

The step that matters

Let it boil for 2 minutes to cook the flour. Flour starch needs to reach a boil and simmer briefly to swell fully and lose its raw, pasty taste. Stopping early leaves the sauce thin in body and tasting floury.

“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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