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Sauce

Drawn Butter

A sauce made by melting butter, adding flour, and gradually whisking in stock or water until thickened.

From an old cookbook · modernised transcription
From a historical cookbook (Internet Archive) · 5 ingredients
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Why it works: Butter and flour 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

  1. Melt half the butter in a saucepan over low heat, being careful not to let it brown.

  2. Add the flour and mix well.

  3. Gradually add the hot water, stirring rapidly as it thickens.

  4. Once smooth, add the remaining butter in small pieces and stir until absorbed.

  5. Season with salt and pepper.

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

    Shared aroma: isobutyraldehyde (malty, green).

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

    Shared aroma: isobutyraldehyde (malty, green).

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

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

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

Butter
Enriches the sauce with fat, giving it rich flavour and a smooth, glossy mouthfeel.
Flour
Thickens the liquid as its starch swells with heat, giving the sauce body.
White stock or hot water
Forms the liquid base that the flour thickens into a pourable sauce.

The step that matters

Gradually add the hot water while stirring rapidly. Adding liquid slowly while stirring keeps the flour dispersed, preventing lumps. Starch thickens as it heats, so the sauce must be stirred to keep it smooth.

“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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