Why it works: Butter and lemon are a kitchen classic. They rank in the top 16% of all ingredient pairs, and cooks put them together in 41,227 recipes. Both carry 3-hexenal, which smells apple, fruity. The science ↓
Drawn Butter
Ingredients
Directions
Melt the butter in a small saucepan over low heat.
Add salt and lemon juice, stirring to combine.
Serve warm with your choice of seafood or vegetables.
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 + lemontop 16% of all pairsSmell alikemoderateCooked together41,227 recipes
Shared aroma: 3-hexenal (apple, fruity).
Ranks compare each pair with 20,000 random ingredient pairs on CompKitchen. How we score pairs
What each ingredient does
- Unsalted butter
- Provides the fat base and rich flavour that carries the sauce.
- Lemon juice
- Adds acidity that brightens the buttery flavour.
The step that matters
Melt the butter over low heat. Butter is an emulsion of fat, water and milk solids. Gentle heat melts it without scorching the milk solids, which would turn it brown and bitter. Low heat keeps the sauce smooth and golden.
“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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