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Sauce

Drawn Butter

A thickened milk and butter sauce made with flour, salt, and boiling water.

From an old cookbook · modernised transcription
By Towanda, Pa. Christ church. Young ladies society. [from old catalog] · From a historical cookbook (Internet Archive) · 5 ingredients
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Why it works: Milk and butter are a kitchen classic. They rank in the top 7% of all ingredient pairs, and cooks put them together in 81,283 recipes. Both carry (z)-4-heptenal, which smells biscuit, cream. The science ↓

Drawn Butter

Ingredients

Directions

  1. Heat one-half pint of milk.

  2. Mix thoroughly one heaping tablespoonful flour, two tablespoonfuls butter, and a saltspoonful of salt.

  3. Pour the mixture into the milk, stirring all the time, adding one-half pint boiling water.

  4. When smooth, stir into the boiling milk.

  5. Let simmer about five minutes.

Nutrition, whole recipe (rough)

706Calories
21 gProtein
21 gFat
107 gCarbs

Counts 4 of 5 ingredients. The other 1 aren't in our nutrition table and add nothing above, so the real totals are higher.

What these numbers assume: 4 portions
IngredientPortion assumedkcal
Flour1 cup (125g) all-purpose455
Milk1 cup (244ml) whole149
Butter1 tbsp (14g)102
Salt1 tsp (6g)0
Waternot in our table0

One typical portion per ingredient; the recipe's quantities are not counted. A rough guide only, not for medical or dietary planning.

By Towanda, Pa. Christ church. Young ladies society. [from old catalog]. 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. See the original page.

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. Milk + buttertop 7% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together81,283 recipes

    Shared aroma: (z)-4-heptenal (biscuit, cream).

  2. Butter + flourtop 12% of all pairs
    Smell alikelow
    Cooked together124,287 recipes

    Shared aroma: isobutyraldehyde (malty, green).

  3. Milk + flourtop 14% of all pairs
    Smell alikelow
    Cooked together78,219 recipes

    Shared aroma: isobutyraldehyde (malty, green).

Butter and flour 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

Flour
Thickens the sauce as it cooks, giving it body.
Butter
Adds richness and smooth flavour, and helps the flour blend without lumps.
Milk
Forms the liquid base that the flour thickens into a sauce.

The step that matters

Stirring the flour-butter mixture into the milk. Adding the paste while stirring constantly keeps flour from clumping. Pouring it in all at once or stirring too little leaves lumps that cannot be fully smoothed out later.

“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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