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Sauce

Drawn Butter

A light sauce made from milk, water, flour or cornstarch, butter, and optionally garnished with boiled egg.

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

Make the sauce

  1. In a saucepan, combine the milk and water and bring to a boil.

  2. Whisk in the flour or cornstarch and boil for 5 minutes.

  3. Strain the mixture unless it is perfectly smooth.

Finish

  1. Stir in the butter until melted.

  2. Add the chopped boiled egg, or garnish with slices if preferred.

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. Milk + buttertop 7% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together81,283 recipes

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

  2. Flour + buttertop 12% of all pairs
    Smell alikelow
    Cooked together124,287 recipes

    Shared aroma: isobutyraldehyde (malty, green).

  3. Milk + flourtop 14% of all pairs
    Smell alikelow
    Cooked together78,219 recipes

    Shared aroma: isobutyraldehyde (malty, green).

  4. Flour + eggtop 15% of all pairs
    Smell alikelow
    Cooked together106,462 recipes

    Shared aroma: isobutyraldehyde (malty, green).

  5. Egg + buttertop 17% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together118,967 recipes

    Shared aroma: decanal (soap, orange peel).

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

Milk
Forms the liquid base and adds richness and a creamy flavor to the sauce.
Flour or cornstarch
Thickens the liquid as its starch swells and sets when boiled.
Butter
Adds fat for a smooth mouthfeel and rich flavor.

The step that matters

Whisk in the flour or cornstarch and boil for 5 minutes. Starch clumps when it hits hot liquid unless it is whisked in steadily. Boiling fully swells the starch granules, which thickens the sauce and cooks out the raw starch taste.

“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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