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Burnt Butter for Fish or Eggs

Burnt butter made by cooking butter until dark brown, then adding vinegar, salt, and pepper.

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 for Fish or Eggs

Ingredients

Directions

  1. Heat the butter in a frying pan until dark brown.

  2. Add the vinegar, salt, and pepper.

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
Its milk solids brown in the heat, giving a nutty, toasty aroma and flavor to the sauce.
Vinegar
Adds acidity that cuts through the richness of the butter and sharpens the flavor.

The step that matters

Heat the butter until dark brown. Butter's milk solids darken quickly, and past the right colour they turn bitter and burnt-tasting. Watch the pan closely and stop the heat as soon as the butter reaches a dark brown.

“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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