Butter Makes It Better
Do I make myself clear?
Butter seems to go in and out of fashion. For a while in the 80s and 90s it was a nutritional pariah. Animal fat and saturated fat and cholesterol, oh my! Margarine was the “healthier” choice and brands abounded, replete with heart-healthy claims.
Except one rather large problem: those apparently healthier plant-based oils aren’t so healthy when hydrogenated. Hydrogenation, the process of forcing hydrogen molecules into oil molecules, is what makes plant oils thicken (that’s a crazy oversimplification mind you). Fully hydrogenated oil would be like candle wax, but partial hydrogenation gives oils a nice spreadable texture. And the partial hydrogenation process creates trans fats, which most of us know raise your bad (LDL) cholesterol. Your doctor called and was not pleased.
So butter came back in fashion again, just in moderation this time. And let’s be honest – it tastes better anyway.
You probably love butter, and you’re probably using it wrong.
Ok, “wrong” is possibly too strong a word. You can definitely add butter to your mashed potatoes, pour it over your popcorn, and work it into your pie crusts. But butter has a hidden potential that you can unlock with one simple process - a bit of heat.
Butter, unlike the vegetable or olive or many of the other oils you have in your cupboard, is not solely made up of fat. It contains a significant amount of milk solids and water - approximately 15% of total weight depending on where you live, what brand you buy, what breed of cow is involved, etc. Butter is, in essence an emulsion, and hey - didn’t we talk about emulsions last week?
The water and the solids mean that butter doesn’t act like other oils. Because it is an emulsion it can help emulsify other things (think those nice shiny sauces you get in restaurants), and the milk solids can be browned, making for one of the most delicious things on the planet - browned butter.
That said, the water splutters and spits in the pan and those yummy milk solid bits can go from tasty brownness to bitter blackness in a blink. And butter’s smoke point is only about 350F, which makes it a little too delicate for serious pan frying. The water and the milk solids also make butter go rancid much faster than most other fats (and rancid butter is f*cking disgusting, btw).
Clarified butter means you can truly have it all.
By separating the butter fat from the water and milk solids you can have tasty butter that can tolerate a higher temperature (450F) and won’t leave burned bits all over your eggs. It’s easy to make.
In fact, we’re going to go a little further than just clarified butter - we’re making ghee. Ghee is a common ingredient in south Asian cuisines because the clarifying process makes butterfat more stable and less prone to going rancid in warmer climates. Its main difference from the stuff you get with your lobster is that in ghee the milk solids brown, infusing the butterfat with rich toasty notes and a gorgeous golden colour.
The standard process for clarified butter involves skimming the foam off the top of the melted butter; we aren’t going to do that. We’re going to let those solids sink to the bottom of the pan and get nice and toasty.
You’ll need at least half a pound of butter (preferably unsalted, but use what ya got), a small pot, a fine mesh sieve (or a regular sieve plus some cheesecloth or a paper coffee filter), and a clean container.
Melt your butter over low heat. You are in no hurry here.
Once the butter is melted allow the water to cook away. You will know it is working when you get big spluttery bubbles. This is the water that has sunk to the bottom beginning to boil. Fluffy foam will appear on the surface - these are the milk solids rising to the top.
Continue cooking at low heat without stirring (an occasional swirl of the pan is fine). The bubbly boiling sounds will decrease and be replaced with a light crackling noise, the foam will mostly sink to the bottom (although it does catch around the edges a bit), and your kitchen will smell amazing.
When most of the foam has sunk to the bottom, pour your butter through your strainer (lined with the cheesecloth or coffee filter if necessary) into a clean vessel.
The magic golden liquid in your vessel is almost pure butterfat. It will last for months in the fridge and can even survive on the kitchen counter (covered, of course) for a few weeks. It has the nutty aroma of browned butter and is perfect anywhere you’d use melted butter: sauces like Hollandaise, pan fried fish, eggs, etc. Heck, use it in a warm vinaigrette! Buttery roasted vegetables! Tempting as it may be, drinking it directly from the container is not recommended - butter is not a beverage.
And those crusty brown butter solids? If you are the sort of person who would throw them out you don’t deserve to have them. They can be tossed into with pasta, forked through hot rice, added to baked goods like cookies, or used anywhere you’d like a little buttery toasty goodness. Heaven!
Aside from the toasty bits bonus, the other advantage of this method is that we don’t waste much. In a restaurant we might clarify five or six pounds of butter (or more!) at one time so skimming the fluffy solids off the top is worthwhile - we don’t lose that much overall yield in the process. But if you’re doing it at home with a pound or less you’ll lose too much - every skim with a spoon or ladle is a little more gone. And butter is damn expensive - so don’t waste it, K?
Butter may in fact be one of the most magical ingredients in your kitchen. It’s a flavourful, versatile and, in moderation, healthy natural product that can completely transform your cooking when you learn how to use it. While pretenders come and go there really is no substitute.