Gill Meller
MORE RECIPES
Slow-baked salsify with butter and thyme; Baked mushrooms with rosemary and walnut butter; Garlicky pea ravioli with brown butter; Grilled langoustine with lemon and parsley butter; Dover sole with seaweed butter; Lemon sole poached in butter with thyme; Plaice with rosemary, caper and anchovy butter; Sweetbread kievs; Whisky and marmalade bread and butter pudding
SOURCING
abernethybuttercompany.com; hookandson.co.uk; quickes.co.uk
There is nothing quite like hot toast, spread with fridge-cold butter and good marmalade. As a source of saturated fats, butter has received a bad press over the years, but recent analysis has questioned the link between saturated fats and heart disease. Also, butter is a source of fat-soluble vitamins, including vitamin A, and of conjugated linoleic acid (CLA). Eaten in moderation, butter can play a role in a healthy diet.
I find it amazing to think that cows produce rich, creamy milk from a simple natural diet of grass. Butter is made by skimming off the cream from that milk and agitating it. The agitating (or churning) process damages the fat globules in the cream, which begin to break down. The fat leaks out of the globules and masses together, into ‘grains’ of butter, and the liquid that remains is called buttermilk.
You can make butter easily in your own kitchen. All you have to do is fill a large jam jar two-thirds full with double cream – ideally a few days old, but still fresh – and shake it up. Eventually it will ‘split’ and you will be left with home-made butter and a quantity of thin buttermilk too (see Buttermilk). It takes a little more elbow grease than buying it, but it’s much more fun.
The process is basically the same on a commercial scale, albeit most butter these days is produced in huge ‘continuous churning’ machines. These accelerate the process and allow manufacturers to precisely control moisture content by injecting water into the butter if necessary; they can also remove air from it to increase shelf-life. Factory-made butter may also include milk or milk powder, besides pure cream.
As an alternative, there are some wonderful butters still made in small batches in the traditional way. Their texture is delightfully dense and where standard supermarket butter is 80–82 per cent butterfat, a good artisanal butter may be up to 86 per cent. Such rich butter is particularly good for baking and pastry-making.
The flavour of the cream – and therefore of the resulting butter – varies subtly depending on the breed of the cow, the food it eats and the time of year that it is milked (although these fluctuations are what industrial butter-making aims to iron out).
The flavour of butter is also influenced if bacterial cultures are allowed to grow in it. In pre-industrial times, raw, unpasteurised cream would be collected over several days of milking before it was churned. Left to stand for this time, the bacteria in the milk produced lactic acid and other flavour compounds, giving the cream a slightly sour, fermented edge. This culturing of the cream gave the butter a deeper, fuller taste, which is still preferred in much of Europe.
Today nearly all butter is made with pasteurised cream but cultures may be added once the butter is churned. Many French butters – both artisan butters and mainstream brands – are cultured, and have a characteristic, full, lactic flavour. British butters are not usually cultured and have a slightly sweeter taste.
You can buy goat’s milk butters from most supermarkets and farm shops. The cream is churned in a similar way but the butter has a sweet, grassy flavour with the merest hint of ‘goat’. It is nearly always lighter in colour than a cow’s milk butter – often almost white – so many producers add a colouring to give it a more familiar yellow hue. It can be used in exactly the same way as cow’s butter, though as with all goat dairy products, it’s hard to find free-range (see Goat & kid).
When butter melts in a hot pan it ‘splits’. Most of it is pure fat, which turns clear and golden, but a layer of milk solids will separate from the fat and sink to the bottom of the pan, while residual water contained in the butter will evaporate as it sizzles away. The butter will re-solidify if cooled, but it won’t re-combine into a smooth mass. This heating and separating is referred to as ‘clarifying’ the butter. The advantages are that the milk solids can be discarded, leaving pure butterfat which has a higher smoke point, making it great for frying. This heating and separating is referred to as ‘clarifying’ the butter. The advantages are that the milk solids can be discarded, leaving pure butterfat which has a higher smoke point, making it great for frying.
Ghee, a form of clarified butter, is widely used in Indian cuisine, probably because pure butterfat keeps much better in a hot climate than creamy butter itself. The melted butter is cooked, rather than just melted, giving ghee a deeper, richer flavour than simple clarified butter. The flavour also varies depending on where the butter is from and how the ghee has been made (some ghee is made from buffalo milk). It can be spiced or otherwise flavoured and is particularly popular in Northern India.
Sometimes it’s desirable to retain the milk solids in melted butter and allow them to burn slightly. Beurre noisette, or brown butter, is made by gently heating melted butter so that the milk solids develop a nutty, aromatic flavour and rich brown colour. Much-loved by the French, beurre noisette is used in baking (see below) as well as for making a simple and delicious sauce or dressing for fish, roast meats and vegetables.
At River Cottage we use organic unsalted butter on a daily basis. We find it is more versatile than salted butter, especially when it comes to delicate puddings and sweets that may call for little or no salt. It’s also better for sautéeing as it has a slightly higher smoke point than salted butter. But when it comes to hot crumpets or breakfast toast, a good salty butter is hard to beat.
Buying organic offers an assurance that the cows who have produced the milk have spent much of their time grazing outdoors on untreated pasture. Butter from grass-fed animals is higher in CLA and other beneficial nutrients than that from grain-fed cows. And I believe that natural, grassy diet is reflected in the quality of the butter, and in the flavour of the delicious pastries, biscuits and cakes we make with it.
Devilishly moreish, these biscuits have a wonderfully rich flavour thanks to the nutty brown butter used to make them. Makes 8 wedges
225g plain flour
75g caster sugar
¼ tsp fine sea salt
150g unsalted butter
Preheat the oven to 170°C/Fan 150°C/Gas 3. Lightly butter a 20cm loose-bottomed cake tin and line the base with a disc of baking parchment.
Put the flour, sugar and salt into a large bowl and whisk together thoroughly.
Put the butter into a medium saucepan over a low heat. Let it melt completely, then increase the heat a fraction so that it starts to simmer. Cook for about 7 minutes, swirling it around often. It will release steam to start with, then simmer for a bit. Watch it carefully until it gets to the point where it starts to foam and the butter solids on the base of the pan turn brown. Quickly, before the solids blacken, take off the heat.
Immediately pour the melted butter into the flour, scraping in the browned butter solids too, and mix well until it comes together into a crumbly dough. Tip this into the prepared tin and smooth out with the back of a spoon into an even disc. Prick all over with a fork, right through to the base. Bake for 35–40 minutes, or until just starting to turn pale golden brown at the edges.
Leave in the tin, marking it into 8 wedges after it has cooled for a few minutes. Leave to cool completely in the tin. The shortbread will keep for a week in an airtight tin.
