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Sauce

Drawn Butter

A sauce made by melting butter with flour and milk or water.

From an old cookbook · modernised transcription
From a historical cookbook (Internet Archive) · 3 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 ↓

Drawn Butter

Ingredients

Directions

Prepare

  1. In a bowl, rub together the flour and butter until well mixed.

  2. Transfer the mixture to a saucepan and add the milk or water.

Melt and finish

  1. Place the saucepan in a dish of boiling water, shaking it gently until the butter melts and is nearly boiling.

  2. Avoid placing the saucepan directly on the stove to prevent the butter from becoming oily.

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

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

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

    Shared aroma: isobutyraldehyde (malty, green).

  3. Flour + milktop 14% of all pairs
    Smell alikelow
    Cooked together78,219 recipes

    Shared aroma: isobutyraldehyde (malty, green).

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
Provides fat that melts into a smooth, rich sauce.
All-purpose flour
Thickens the melted butter so it coats food rather than pooling.
Milk or water
Adds liquid that helps emulsify the butter and keep the sauce smooth.

The step that matters

Heating gently in boiling water. Direct heat can separate the butter, leaving it oily. A water bath melts the butter gently and evenly, keeping the emulsion stable and the sauce 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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