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 ↓
Drawn Butter, or Melted Butter
Ingredients
Directions
Prepare
Rub 2 teaspoons of flour into ¼ pound of butter.
Add 5 tablespoons of cold water.
Melt
Place the mixture in boiling water and let it melt.
Heat until it begins to simmer, then remove from heat.
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
- Butter
- Provides the fat that melts into a rich, flavorful liquid.
- All-purpose flour
- Helps hold the melted butter together and slows separation of its fat and water.
The step that matters
Heat until it begins to simmer, then remove from heat.. Butter is mostly fat with some water and milk solids. Once it simmers, the water is boiling off and the milk solids can scorch quickly, so removing it at the first simmer prevents burning and a bitter taste.
“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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