Butter - a good fat if it's good butter
We make such a fuss about fat. Like everything else, don't have too much of it and aim for the best. Good butter is sometimes worth paying more money for. And look out for "Fat: An Appreciation of a Misunderstood Ingredient, with Recipes", by Jennifer McLagan, Ten Speed Press.
Until butter was made industrially, it came from cream from the milk of different milkings collected over several days. So that when it was churned it was slightly fermented by natural bacteria that convert milk sugars into lactic acid. This is the classic unpasteurized cream butter so beloved of the French. Modern factory-made butter in the US comes from cream pasteurized - to kill off pathogenic bacteria - to create 'cultured' butter. Fermentation is produced by the deliberate introduction of good bacterial cultures and lactic acid. Color is often introduced also.
The amount of butterfat in butter is key. U.S. butter must contain a minimum of 80 percent butterfat. European butters tend to be 85 percent and higher.
Whipped butter is butter aerated by nitrogen gas.
Just melt a lump of regular supermarket butter in a hot pan and see how long it takes to sizzle out the water. U.S. butter is more watery, at 15 percent water.
Good butter makes all the difference to baking. But it's wonderful on hot toast or a slice of chewy fresh bread. Isigny de St Mere from France is a sweet, rich butter with real character and no padding with water. Find it at Wagshal's, 4855 Massachusetts Ave NW, 202 363 5698. Le President is another brand, sold at Whole Foods.
Plugra which French pastry chefs swear by for its low water content and a fat content that is 2.5% higher than the best butters, can be found at Dean & DeLuca, and Whole Foods - sometimes.
Danish Lurpak is another good butter which you'll find in the cold cabinet at Yekta.
To make clarified butter, slowly melt the butter in a small saucepan until it begins to froth. With a large spoon, scoop up and discard this froth. Continue to cook until the butter begins to bubble (this is the water cooking out of it). Once the bubbling has subsided, remove the butter from the flame. You will notice some residue on the bottom of the pot. This is the milk protein that has collected. Pour it through a cheesecloth or coffee filter. Note: the reason to clarify the butter is to prevent burning. Clarified butter, which has the proteins, solids and water cooked out, has a higher smoking point than regular butter, which will burn rather quickly.
And that curious lip on the end of a butter-knife handle? It's to stop your fingers sliding down and into the butter...
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