Cooking / Frying with Butter
Butter is used for cooking by almost all peoples in the world, except Vegans
of course - but they deserve the deprivation they have chosen.
The information
given here is for Butter from Cow Milk. That from Sheep, Goats, Camels,
Horses, Yaks, and Water Buffalo may vary a little.
First:
Lets get this out of the way. Many recipes and
cookbooks say to mix Butter with Oil to keep the butter from burning. This
is scientifically absurd, it still burns at the same temperature, it's just
less obvious. Mixing Butter with Olive Oil specifically for flavor is
legitimate, but you still have to keep the temperature low.
Salted?
Salted Butter, which stores longer, cooks the same as
Unsalted Butter, which tastes like axle grease. I use Unsalted Butter for
rendering into Ghee or Clarified Butter, but not much else. The common
excuse is that with salted butter you can't estimate the exact amount of salt
in the recipe. Perhaps this has some validity for the Hari Krishna and similar
folks who are not allowed to taste the food until it has been offered to the
Deity, but the exact amount of salt isn't usually that critical anyway.
Fortunately, the multi-ethnic markets I shop at have started stocking Altadena
salted butter. Formerly the only salted butter they had was small expensive
blocks from France. Perhaps they finally noticed that when they did put out
some Altadena salted, it was sold out within hours.
Temperatures
120°F / 50°C
[Melted] This temperature will not
make any flavor difference in the butter within normal cooking times.
135°F / 58°C
[Emulsion Sauces] Hollandaise,
Bearnaise, etc. This temperature makes the butter good and melted without
risking coagulating the Eggs.
165°F / 75°C
[Pan Sauces, Beurre Monté]
Add a little stock or other liquid to the pan, then small chunks of butter
and stir. Sauce is done. A small amount of water can emulsify quite a lot
of butter.
200°F / 95°C
[Clarified Butter / Ghee / Niter Kibbeh]
This temperature will keep the water below boiling so it doesn't mix
with the fat as it evaporates, and the solids will sink to the bottom. For
Clarified Butter and Ethiopian Niter Kibbeh, after it stops bubbling it is
allowed to rise to 240°F/115°C, and Ghee to
290°F/140°C, or even higher for a more nutty flavor.
300°F / 150°C
[Frying Prep] A good temperature
for boiling out the water before using the butter for frying at higher
temperatures. This temperature won't happen until the water is gone.
340 - 355°F / 170-180°C
[Frying Temperature]
This is the normal frying temperature for fish and thin pieces of meats,
where they will be done between 5 and 10 minutes.
375°F / 190°C
[Breaded Frying] Breaded items
need a high temperature to brown. Frying time should be short as short as
will get the desired color, and the Butter should be discarded and the pan
wiped before frying a another batch.
390°F / 200°C
[Hard Frying] Here the meat
must be completely cooked in Oil, then Butter added at the last minute
for flavor. The Oil will be contaminated immediately and should be
discarded.
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