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Sauce

Drawn Butter

A simple sauce made with butter, flour, boiling water, salt, pepper, and chopped hard‑boiled egg.

From an old cookbook · modernised transcription
From a historical cookbook (Internet Archive) · 6 ingredients
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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 ↓

Drawn Butter

Ingredients

Directions

The book gives no cooking times; the times in the steps were added in transcription, so check for doneness rather than trusting the clock.

  1. In a saucepan, melt the butter over medium heat.

  2. Stir in the flour and cook for 1 minute.

  3. Gradually add the boiling water, whisking until smooth.

  4. Season with salt and pepper.

  5. For fish sauce, stir in the chopped hard-boiled egg.

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

    Shared aroma: isobutyraldehyde (malty, green).

  2. Flour + eggtop 15% of all pairs
    Smell alikelow
    Cooked together106,462 recipes

    Shared aroma: isobutyraldehyde (malty, green).

  3. Butter + eggtop 17% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together118,967 recipes

    Shared aroma: decanal (soap, orange peel).

  4. Flour + peppertop 19% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together50,459 recipes

    Shared aroma: isobutyraldehyde (malty, green).

  5. Butter + peppertop 21% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together85,593 recipes

    Shared aroma: trans-2-nonenal (cardboard, fatty).

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

Butter
Carries flavor and gives the sauce a rich, silky mouthfeel.
Flour
Its starch thickens the liquid into a smooth, cohesive sauce.
Boiling water
Forms the liquid base that the flour-thickened butter turns into a pourable sauce.
Hard-boiled egg
Adds body and a soft, chunky texture to the fish sauce version.

The step that matters

Adding the boiling water gradually while whisking. Flour starch must be dispersed evenly in the fat before the liquid is added. Pouring the water in all at once or unevenly lets starch clump into lumps that are hard to smooth out. Steady whisking spreads the starch so it thickens into an even sauce.

“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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