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Rich Melted Butter

A butter sauce made by whisking flour and salt into cold water, then adding butter and simmering.

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

Why it works: Flour and butter 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 ↓

Rich Melted Butter

Ingredients

Directions

  1. In a clean saucepan, mix the flour, salt, and cold water to form a smooth batter.

  2. Add the butter cut into small pieces and shake the saucepan continuously until the mixture is well blended and nearly boiling.

  3. Let it simmer for 2 to 3 minutes without allowing it to boil.

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 + buttertop 12% of all pairs
    Smell alikelow
    Cooked together124,287 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

All-purpose flour
Thickens the liquid and helps stabilize the emulsion so the butter stays blended.
Butter
Supplies fat for rich flavor and a smooth, creamy texture.

The step that matters

Simmer without boiling. Letting the mixture boil can break the butter emulsion, causing it to separate and turn greasy. Keeping it just below a boil holds the blend smooth and creamy.

“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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