Melted Butter

Ingredients

• half a pound of fresh butter
• two ounces of butter
• one ounce of flour
• a saltspoonful of salt
• half a pint of liquid

Method

1. 1

   Melt one ounce of butter in a saucepan over a slow fire.

2. 2

   Add the flour, mixing until it forms a smooth paste.

3. 3

   Cook the roux gently without coloring.

4. 4

   Gradually add the chosen liquid and the salt, increasing the heat and stirring until creamy.

5. 5

   Pass the sauce through a strainer into a hot sauce-boat, adding the second ounce of butter just before serving.

As published

This recipe was extracted from Mrs. Roundell's Practical cookery book (1898) by Roundell, Charles Mrs, page 83. The excerpt below is the record exactly as published.

Melted Butter is “ Melted Butter ; it is not flour and water and butter, nor flour “ and milk and butter, but it is the butter and nothing else.” The valet’s recipe was : For one pint of Melted Butter use half a pound of fresh butter. Put it in a saucepan on one side of the hot hearth, or on a very slow fire. Beat the butter with a wooden spoon as it melts. Continue beating till it is even and white, like cream. Simmer it for five minutes, beating all the time. This recipe still holds its own, but many people, in spite of the knowledge that a little of a good thing is better than a great deal of a bad thing, would consider it too expensive. Melted Butter is supposed to be the standard English Sauce, but it is very seldom well made by English cooks. Everyone knows the story of the bride who entreated her cook not to put lumps into the Melted Butter, but everyone does not know how to prevent the presence of lumps, or how to avoid the paste-like flavour given by the raw flour to the Sauce. Both these defects are due to the same cause, that is, the stirring of the uncooked flour into the Sauce, instead of previously cooking the flour and butter together. Besides, it is very wasteful to stir in the flour, for lumps must form, and when they are strained off they are good for nothing, and can only be thrown away. For one pint of Melted Butter ( sauce blanche ), take two ounces of butter, one ounce of flour, a saltspoonful of salt, and half a pint of liquid

Cook this with the app: pantry check, scaling, and the assistant.