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Drawn Butter, or Melted Butter
Miss Beaty.
Rub in two teaspoonsful of flour into a quarter of a pound of butter; add five tablespoonsful of cold water; set it into boiling water and let it melt, and heat until it begins to simmer, and it is done. Never simmer it on coals, as it fries the oil and spoils it. Be careful not to have the flour in lumps. If it is to be used with fish, put in chopped eggs and nasturtium, or capers. If used with boiled fowl, put in oysters while it is simmering, and let them heat through.
A nineteenth-century drawn butter is a loose flour-thickened butter sauce, not clarified butter, and the whole method turns on gentle indirect heat. It comes together in about five minutes once the water is boiling.
- The hinge: never over direct heatThe bowl or pan sits in boiling water, double-boiler fashion, so the sauce is held below boiling rather than reaching pan temperature. Set over a burner, the butter breaks and "fries the oil" exactly as Miss Beaty warns, leaving a greasy, separated sauce.
- Quarter pound of butterThat is one standard 4 oz stick, or 1/2 cup. Two teaspoons of flour with five tablespoons of water gives a thin, pourable sauce; the recipe does not specify salted or unsalted butter, so salt to taste at the end.
- No lumpsWork the flour into the softened butter with a fork or your fingers until it is a smooth paste, as the recipe's "rub in" and its warning against lumps direct.