Cooking In European cooking, a mixture of butter and flour called a roux is used to thicken liquids to make stews or sauces. In Asian cooking, a similar effect is obtained from a mixture of rice or corn starch and water. These techniques rely on the properties of starches to create simpler mucilaginous saccharides during cooking, which causes the familiar thickening of sauces. This thickening will break down, however, under additional heat. Types of fat include vegetable oils, animal products such as butter and lard, as well as fats from grains, including corn and flax oils. Fats are used in a
Butter a "compound butter" or "composite butter" (sometimes also called "composed butter"). Compound butters can be used as spreads, or cooled, sliced, and placed onto hot food to melt into a sauce. Sweetened compound butters can be served with desserts; such hard sauces are often flavored with spirits. Melted butter plays an important role in the preparation of sauces, most obviously in French cuisine. "Beurre noisette" (hazelnut butter) and "Beurre noir" (black butter) are sauces of melted butter cooked until the milk solids and sugars have turned golden or dark brown; they are often finished with an addition of vinegar or