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Melted or Drawn Butter

A butter sauce thickened with flour, milk or water, and finished with chopped hard-boiled eggs.

From an old cookbook · modernised transcription
From a historical cookbook (Internet Archive) · 4 ingredients
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Melted or Drawn Butter

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 ↓

Melted or Drawn Butter

Ingredients

Directions

Make the base

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

  2. Add the milk or hot water and mix well.

Cook and finish

  1. Place the mixture in a small saucepan over low heat, ensuring there is no flame nearby.

  2. Cover the saucepan.

  3. Shake the saucepan until it boils.

  4. Skim off any foam.

  5. Add the chopped hard-boiled eggs.

  6. Bring it to a boil once more before serving.

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.

Photo for illustrative purposes only · Contact us to use it

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).

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

    Shared aroma: isobutyraldehyde (malty, green).

  5. Butter + eggtop 17% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together118,967 recipes

    Shared aroma: decanal (soap, orange peel).

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 richness and fat, giving the sauce a smooth, creamy mouthfeel.
Flour
Thickens the mixture as its starch swells in liquid, giving the butter body.
Milk
Provides the liquid that hydrates the flour and forms the spread's creamy base.
Hard-boiled eggs
Supply protein and flavour, adding substance and a rich, savoury taste.

The step that matters

Shake the saucepan until it boils. Shaking keeps the mixture moving so the flour does not settle and scorch on the bottom while the starch thickens. Low heat and constant motion help the sauce stay smooth rather than lumpy or burnt.

“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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