SC - drawn butter?

[Philip & Susan Troy]

Mark Harris wrote:

> Ok, another question from the new cook:
> 
> What is drawn butter?

All right. In the "Everything Most People Never Wanted to Know
Department", I have my Official Drawn Butter Dissertation, which
actually may come in handy for some. (Hah!)  ;  )

Okay. Things that are, in archaic versions of English, drawn, are mostly
either eviscerated, which isn't an issue here, or made thick in some
way, which is. Examples are the instructions to draw up a thick almond
milk, or to draw something through a streynour, which more often than
not means to force the item through a strainer to puree it and thereby
make it smooth mixture, rather than lumps and water.

Butter is an emulsion, a perfect mixture of an oil and water, which
under normal circumstances don't want to mix. In this case, they do
anyway. When you melt butter, it becomes a relatively thin liquid, and
the emulsion "breaks" apart into its two parts again, which is why you
can skim the clear butterfat off the top, and leave the rest behind, and
it is this clarified butterfat that is what most modern people think of
as drawn butter (which, by the way, is NOT the same thing as the ghee
used in Indian and Midle Eastern cookery, but don't get me started).

In [late] period cookery parlance butter would have been "drawn" by
melting it VERY slowly and on a very gentle heat, like in a double
boiler or some such, with another liquid, beating it as it melts. So you
find sauces made from things like the vinegar that a fish was marinated
in, with butter melted into it and whipped to form a relatively thick,
creamy sauce, along the lines of modern beurre blanc or hollandaise.
Yummers.

Sauces like that are still made today on the Continent, especially in
France, Spain, Portugal and Italy. In England, however, somebody
conceived the idea that drawn butter should be made by making a roux
thickener of cooked flour and butter, turn that into a sauce by adding
water or vinegar or a mixture, or ale, or SOMETHING, and simmering it
for a bit, and then adding more butter, this time beating it in in the
traditional way. I don't know if this was developed by someone who felt
that the starch of the roux would keep the sauce more stable (so it
wouldn't break or de-emulsify on high heat), or if the issue was
expense, with flour and water taking the place of some of the butter, or
if they thought that simple butter beaten into a flavorful liquid was
just too rich, or what. In any case, flour-thickened drawn butter sauces
appear to have originated in England in the late eighteenth, early
nineteenth centuries. In spite of the fact that the sauce in the packet
of Lipton Rice or Noodles In Sauce is more or less made this way, with
dried butter solids and Wondra or some other pre-cooked flour stuff,
it's still a perfectly viable sauce. I like mine on peas, with a tiny
pinch of sugar and some chopped mint. (And STILL Lady Aoife thinks I
don't give English cooking a fair break! ;  )   ) Some people like it on
Lutefisk, which is how we got on this topic in the first place, IIRC.

But, drawing butter up with a small amount of just water , or vinegar,
or some other watery liquid is still alive and well (in dishes like REAL
fettucine Alfredo, f'rinstance), just as it would have been done in
period. At least in late period, anyway.

Adamantius   
 
______________________________________
Phil & Susan Troy
troy at asan.com
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