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Sauce

Drawn Butter

A sauce made by mixing butter and flour, then adding boiling water and seasoning.

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

Prepare

  1. Mix together the butter and flour in a bowl.

  2. Bring the water to a boil in a kettle.

Make the sauce

  1. Stir the butter and flour mixture into the boiling water.

  2. Season with salt, white pepper, and celery if using, removing the celery stalks before serving.

  3. Boil for a few minutes, stirring constantly.

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 + celerytop 15% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together6,905 recipes

    Shared aroma: isobutyraldehyde (malty, green).

  3. White pepper + celerytop 17% of all pairs
    Smell alikelow
    Cooked together853 recipes

    Shared aroma: myrcene (balsamic, herbaceous).

  4. Butter + celerytop 25% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together10,049 recipes

    Shared aroma: guaiacol (smoky, sweet).

  5. Butter + white peppertop 28% of all pairs
    Smell alikelow
    Cooked together3,814 recipes

    Shared aroma: eucalyptol (eucalyptus, herbal).

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
Adds fat and richness, carrying flavor through the sauce.
Flour
Thickens the sauce as its starch swells when heated in the liquid.

The step that matters

Stirring the butter and flour into the boiling water. Flour added to hot liquid can clump into lumps. Stirring constantly disperses the mixture evenly so its starch swells smoothly and the sauce thickens without scorching on the bottom of the pan.

Swap the celery

The recipe marks celery as optional. How well each one fits the dish's main ingredients (butter, flour, white pepper):

  1. Nutmegfits better
  2. Parsleyfits better
  3. Jalapenofits better
  4. Celerythe original

Fit is the average pairing score against butter, flour, white pepper. 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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