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Sauce

Melted Butter Variations

A sauce made by melting butter, adding flour, egg yolk, lemon juice, milk or cream, herbs, capers, and seasonings.

From an old cookbook · modernised transcription
From a historical cookbook (Internet Archive) · 21 ingredients
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Why it works: Chervil and capers match in chemistry and in kitchens. They rank in the top 1% of all ingredient pairs, and cooks put them together in 135 recipes. Both carry coumarin, which smells sweet, hay. The science ↓

Melted Butter Variations

Ingredients

Directions

Make the base

  1. Melt butter in a saucepan and mix in flour until browned.

  2. Beat the egg yolk with lemon juice, strain, and stir into the melted butter off the heat.

  3. For a variation, use milk or a mix of milk and water instead of water.

  4. Add cream to the egg yolk and stir into the melted butter off the heat.

Flavor the sauce

  1. Just before serving, mix in minced fennel, chervil, parsley, or chopped capers.

  2. For a richer sauce, add Worcestershire sauce, ketchup, pepper, and spices to taste.

  3. To make anchovy sauce, stir in a sufficient quantity into the melted butter.

  4. Boil chopped onions, shallots, and garlic in milk with whole pepper, mace, cloves, and parsley for flavor.

  5. Strain the mixture and use the flavored milk instead of water for your sauce.

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. Chervil + caperstop 1% of all pairs
    Smell alikestrong
    Cooked together135 recipes

    Shared aroma: coumarin (sweet, hay).

  2. Lemon + parsleytop 1% of all pairs
    Smell alikestrong
    Cooked together14,037 recipes

    Shared aroma: beta-phellandrene (minty, terpene).

  3. Parsley + caperstop 1% of all pairs
    Smell alikestrong
    Cooked together1,550 recipes

    Shared aroma: coumarin (sweet, hay).

  4. Chervil + parsleytop 1% of all pairs
    Smell alikestrong
    Cooked together774 recipes

    Shared aroma: estragole (anise, licorice).

  5. Fennel + parsleytop 1% of all pairs
    Smell alikestrong
    Cooked together625 recipes

    Shared aroma: myristicin (spice, warm).

Ranks compare each pair with 20,000 random ingredient pairs on CompKitchen. How we score pairs

What each ingredient does

Butter
Forms the fat base of the sauce and carries its flavors.
Flour
Thickens the melted butter into a body for the sauce.
Egg yolk
Adds richness and emulsifies the sauce into a smooth texture.
Milk
Adds creaminess and mild sweetness, and carries the infused flavors.
Lemon juice
Adds acidity that brightens the rich butter and yolk.

The step that matters

Beat the egg yolk with lemon juice and add it off the heat. Egg yolk thickens by gentle heat and can scramble or curdle if the pan is too hot. Removing the pan from the heat before stirring in the yolk lets it thicken smoothly into the butter.

Swap the fennel

How well each one fits the dish's main ingredients (egg, lemon, milk, cream, chervil, parsley, capers):

  1. Tarragonfits better
  2. Dillfits about as well
  3. Nutmegfits about as well
  4. Fennelthe original

Fit is the average pairing score against egg, lemon, milk, cream, chervil, parsley, capers. 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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