Why it works: Butter and cream match in chemistry and in kitchens. They rank in the top 3% of all ingredient pairs, and 41,494 recipes mention both. Both carry delta-dodecalactone, which smells sweet, creamy. The science ↓
The recipe
Ingredients
Contains: milk, fish (auto-detected from the ingredients and method; we can miss things, so check labels)
Directions
Make the sauce
In a clean quart saucepan, melt ½ cup of plain butter.
Add ½ cup of water and boil for three minutes, stirring constantly.
Remove from heat and stir in 5 ounces of maitre d’hotel butter until melted.
Serve
Serve hot.
For fish, add a little fish stock and 2 tablespoons of cream.
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 aroma chemistry they share, and how many recipes mention both.
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Butter + creamtop 3% of all pairsAroma overlapstrongMentioned together41,494 recipes
Shared aroma: delta-dodecalactone (sweet, creamy).
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Butter + fishtop 5% of all pairsAroma overlapstrongMentioned together4,432 recipes
Shared aroma: (z)-4-heptenal (biscuit, cream).
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Cream + fishtop 12% of all pairsAroma overlaplowMentioned together929 recipes
Shared aroma: 2-nonanone (fruity, floral).
Ranks compare each pair with 20,000 random ingredient pairs on CompKitchen. How we score pairs
What each ingredient does
- Plain butter
- Forms the rich, fatty base of the sauce and carries the flavour.
- Water
- Thins the butter and, when boiled, helps create a smoother, pourable emulsion.
- Maitre d’hotel butter
- Adds herb and lemon flavour to the melted butter.
The step that matters
Boiling the water into the butter. Boiling for three minutes while stirring constantly helps the water and butter fat combine into a smooth emulsion. Stopping early or letting it separate can leave the sauce greasy or thin.
“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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