Whisk to the Rescue
Browning butter: it sounds simple but the task often frustrated me. Let us not enumerate the pounds of butter I watched turn from pale tan to bitter black. Let us further not enumerate the attendant curse words. When I discovered an article in Gourmet in which the author suggested watching for the butter to start bubbling and roiling and then whisking the hell out of it, I figured I had nothing to lose but yet another stick of butter.
It worked like a charm.
Now I am the Queen of Perfectly Browned Butter. Bring me your steamed lobster, your fish fillets, your broccolini yearning to be free. I lift my whisk beside the heated pan.
Is there some technical reason why this works? Beats me. Perhaps it’s just a case of making the cook stay pan-side and attentive. I care not for Alton Brown-like explanations; I care only that luscious, nutty-brown butter is now reliably in my repertoire.
Call brown butter by its French name – beurre noisette — and combine it with ground almonds, egg whites, sugar and flour and you’re ready to bake the sublime little French teacakes called financiers. You’ll find a foolproof recipe on one of my favorite food blogs: “In the Kitchen and On the Road with Dorie” and in her book “Paris Sweets.” Be warned: Reading Greenspan’s blog is as addictive as eating financiers.
Tags: browned butter, Dorie Greenspan, financier
Thursday, July 12th, 2007 at 4:41 amand is filed under Uncategorized. You can follow any responses to this entry through the RSS 2.0 feed. You can leave a response, or trackback from your own site.
July 12th, 2007 at 5:25 am
i love browned butter with one of our favorite meals - fresh dungeness crab and steamed artichokes.
i brown it properly about once every 20 times and will try this!
July 12th, 2007 at 1:33 pm
What does browning the butter do? Make it taste different? Sorry if that is a dumb question, I knnow nothing of food.
Also what is diff between this and ghee?
July 12th, 2007 at 2:08 pm
Browning the butter gives it a rich, nutty flavor.
Ghee is clarified butter- butter melted and with the milk solids strained off.
July 12th, 2007 at 3:11 pm
I’m quite sure my husband, harold alton mcgee brown, could explain the chemical reaction. AT LENGTH.
i was terrified to eat beurre noisette for years, because i thought it contained hazelnuts. j’etais une dumbasse.
July 12th, 2007 at 5:51 pm
browned butter is so good. i think we need a cocktail that uses it — maybe a hot brown buttered rum.
August 6th, 2007 at 3:18 am
Julia Moskin quoting Dore’s brownie recipe and other brownie recipes nearly got a letter from me for impugning Pecans. “Walnuts are fine, Pecans are pushing it!”. Philistine!
Thanks for the technique on brown butter and the link for Dore’s blog.
August 8th, 2007 at 6:00 pm
Dorie’s blog is fabulous.
November 25th, 2009 at 11:58 am
Just read a post and i knew we have a fantastic site here-great pics ,super elicious recipes -oh am falling in love…