Chew on This: Buttering up your tastebuds

It’s a tough time of year for cooks. Seasonal produce isn’t particularly interesting. Once you’ve done everything possible to Chioggia beets everything else is restricted in color to what Fifth Avenue calls “griege”. At least it means our food budgets will be lower without the cost of seasonal asparagus, strawberries and baby pattipans. So it’s a good opportunity to spend a little more, without too much pain. Buy some really decent butter.

Good butter isn’t just a greasy spread. The butter most of us grab in the supermarket contains 80 percent butterfat – the legal American minimum. It also contains about 19 percent water. Buy a pat of more expensive European-style butter and the percentages improve from at least 82 to as much as 84 percent butterfat, with only 15 percent water. These alterations may seem small but they’re significant in flavor and cooking. Think about the difference between 2 percent milk and whole milk.

In standard American butters, to contrive what is labeled the “sweet cream” taste, industrial manufacturers add flavorings. In French butters like Isigny-Ste-Mère and Beurre d’Echiré, the natural sweet cream taste is acquired instead through the vital ripening process call “culturing”. But it’s time-consuming, therefore expensive.

Within hours of the milk arriving at the factory, the cream is skimmed off. Then it's pasteurized at a low temperature and natural ferments added. Almost a day goes by while the cream rests, developing flavor and producing the lactic acid that French chefs maintain makes the crucial distinction between foods cooked with French or American butters. This acidity gives French butter a higher melting point, a greater elasticity and helps tenderize dough and pastries.

Good American butters are Keller’s Plugra brand, with 82 percent butter fat and Land O’Lakes’ Ultra Creamy Butter with 83 percent.