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34 Drawn Butter

Drawn butter is a sauce made by mixing butter, flour, and liquid, then simmering.

From an old cookbook · modernised transcription
By Evora Bucknum Perkins · From a historical cookbook (Project Gutenberg) · 13 ingredients
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Why it works: Butter and milk 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 ↓

34 Drawn Butter

Ingredients

Directions

Make the base

  1. Rub butter and flour together, pour boiling water over, heat to boiling, remove from fire and add salt; or, follow directions for sauce with roux.

Make the variations

  1. Use 1¼ cup milk instead of water in preceding recipe.

  2. Use ¼-½ cup of strained tomato, and water to make 1¼ cup, in drawn butter. Flavor with onion if desired.

  3. Add chopped or sliced hard boiled eggs to drawn butter.

  4. Add ½ to 1 tablespoon lemon juice to each cup of liquid in drawn butter.

  5. Add crushed boiled onions to drawn butter. Use sometimes 1¼-1½ tablespoons browned flour No. 1, instead of white flour. May simmer (without browning) sliced or chopped raw onion in butter before adding flour.

Nutrition, whole recipe (rough)

446Calories
17 gProtein
31 gFat
28 gCarbs

Counts 7 of 8 ingredients. The other 1 aren't in our nutrition table and add nothing above, so the real totals are higher.

What these numbers assume: 7 portions
IngredientPortion assumedkcal
Milk1 cup (244ml) whole149
Butter1 tbsp (14g)102
Egg1 large egg (50g)78
Cream1 tbsp (15ml) heavy51
Onion1 medium (110g)44
Tomato1 medium (123g)22
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 Evora Bucknum Perkins. Recipe from a historical cookbook (Project Gutenberg).

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. Butter + milktop 7% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together81,283 recipes

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

  2. Butter + creamtop 8% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together41,516 recipes

    Shared aroma: delta-dodecalactone (sweet, creamy).

  3. Tomato + oniontop 8% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together20,633 recipes

    Shared aroma: 2-isopropyl-3-methoxypyrazine (earthy, pea).

  4. Butter + oniontop 15% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together42,912 recipes

    Shared aroma: decanal (soap, orange peel).

  5. Milk + tomatotop 15% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together2,226 recipes

    Shared aroma: 1-octen-3-one (mushroom, metallic).

Ranks compare each pair with 20,000 random ingredient pairs on CompKitchen. How we score pairs

What each ingredient does

Butter
Forms the fat base that carries flavor and gives the sauce its richness.
Flour (in the method)
Thickens the liquid as its starch swells with heat, giving the sauce body.
Milk
Replaces water to add creaminess and a mild dairy richness to the sauce.
Strained tomato
Adds acidity and color, tinting the sauce and giving it a brighter flavor.
Lemon juice (in the method)
Adds acidity that brightens the buttery sauce and cuts its richness.
Onion
Adds savory aroma and flavor; browning it first deepens the taste.

The step that matters

Pouring boiling water over the butter and flour. Flour clumps when hot liquid hits it unevenly. Rubbing the flour into the butter first coats the starch granules with fat, so they disperse smoothly when the water is added and the sauce stays lump-free.

Swap the tomato

How well each one fits the dish's main ingredients (butter, milk, cream, egg, onion):

  1. Potatofits better
  2. Leekfits better
  3. Chivefits better
  4. Tomatothe original

Fit is the average pairing score against butter, milk, cream, egg, onion. Candidates are from the same food group and used in at least 100 recipes.

“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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