Drawn Butter
2 tablespoons butter 1½ tablespoons flour 1 cup boiling water 1/2 teaspoon salt Melt the butter in a saucepan over the fire; stir in the flour; mix thoroughly, but do not brown; add salt and the water gradually, stirring all the time to prevent lumps. Bring to a boil and serve.
A plain white roux sauce made with water rather than milk, the standard base sauce of nineteenth-century American cooking. It comes together in about five minutes and rewards attention at exactly one point.
- The hinge: cook the roux, but keep it paleLet the butter and flour bubble together for a minute or two over moderate heat so the flour loses its raw taste, and stop well before any colour develops. Browning here turns the sauce beige and thins its thickening power.
- Add the water hotThe recipe specifies boiling water, added gradually with constant stirring. Adding it a little at a time and stirring throughout, as directed, is what keeps the sauce smooth.
- Proportions and consistencyTwo tablespoons butter to one and a half of flour per cup of liquid gives a fairly light sauce, on the thin side of medium. Less flour gives a thinner sauce for moistening fish; two tablespoons or more gives a coating sauce.
- Boil it, and brieflyFlour-thickened sauces need to reach a full boil to thicken properly and lose their pastiness. A minute at the boil is enough; long simmering over direct heat scorches the bottom.
- YieldAbout one cup, enough for four servings over fish, boiled vegetables or asparagus.
- Where to take itThis is the plain form. Traditional finishes are a squeeze of lemon and chopped parsley, a spoon of capers with their vinegar, or a chopped hard-boiled egg, all stirred in off the heat.
- A note on the fatAn extra tablespoon of cold butter whisked in at the end, off the fire, adds gloss. It will not hold at a hard boil, so add it last and serve promptly.
"Drawn butter" is one of the more confusing survivals in old American cookbooks. In British usage the term meant melted butter, sometimes with a little flour to keep it from separating; in nineteenth-century American kitchens it more often meant a flour-and-water sauce enriched with butter and served over boiled fish and vegetables. Eliza Leslie and others of her generation gave detailed directions for keeping it from turning oily or lumpy. This version is the pared-down form: master the roux, master the gradual addition of liquid, and every other flour-thickened sauce follows from it. Milk in place of the water makes a white sauce; stock makes a veloute.