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Sauce

Norfolk Sauce, Or, Rich Melted Butter Without Flour

A sauce made by boiling water, adding butter, and stirring until smooth, then shaking to thicken.

From an old cookbook · modernised transcription
From a historical cookbook (Internet Archive) · 2 ingredients
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Norfolk Sauce, Or, Rich Melted Butter Without Flour

Ingredients

Directions

  1. Put water into a small saucepan and bring to a boil.

  2. Add the butter and stir until completely dissolved.

  3. Remove from heat and shake the saucepan until the sauce is thick and smooth.

  4. Do not allow the sauce to boil after adding the butter.

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

What each ingredient does

Butter
Adds richness; melting it into hot water gives the sauce a smooth, thick body.

The step that matters

Do not allow the sauce to boil after adding the butter.. Boiling after the butter goes in can break the emulsion, so the sauce turns greasy and separates instead of staying smooth and thick.

“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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