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Sauce

Drawn Butter

A simple sauce made by melting butter, whisking in flour, adding water or broth, and seasoning with salt and pepper.

From an old cookbook · modernised transcription
From a historical cookbook (Internet Archive) · 5 ingredients
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Why it works: Flour and butter 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. In a saucepan, melt the butter over medium heat.

  2. Stir in the flour until well mixed.

  3. Gradually add the water or broth, stirring continuously.

  4. Bring to a boil and cook until the sauce is smooth, about 2 to 5 minutes.

  5. Season with salt and pepper to taste.

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. Flour + buttertop 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).

Flour and butter 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
Melted fat that carries flavor and gives the sauce a rich mouthfeel.
Flour
Starch that thickens the liquid into a smooth, cohesive sauce.
Water or broth
Liquid base that the flour-thickened butter turns into a pourable sauce.

The step that matters

Adding the liquid gradually while stirring. Adding liquid all at once to the butter and flour roux can trap lumps of starch. Gradual addition with constant stirring lets the starch granules disperse and hydrate evenly, producing a smooth sauce as it heats and thickens.

“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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