Brown butter and clarified butter

Why

Butter contains roughly 80–82 % fat, about 16 % water and 1–2 % milk solids, that is proteins and milk sugar. As it heats, the water boils first, the butter foams and spits and the temperature stays around 100 °C; once the water has gone, the foam subsides, the temperature climbs quickly and the solids settled on the bottom brown through the Maillard reaction to a nutty aroma – this is brown butter, beurre noisette. Between golden-brown and black, bitter solids there is only a moment; ordinary butter also starts to smoke at roughly 150–175 °C, so it is unsuited to fierce frying. Clarified butter is pure butterfat from which the water has evaporated and the solids have been removed before they brown; for ghee the solids are left to turn golden before straining, so the fat smells nutty. Without water and solids it tolerates roughly 230–250 °C and keeps far longer than butter.

How to do it

• Make brown butter in a light-coloured pan or saucepan over medium heat and swirl the pan so you can see the colour of the solids under the foam.
• As soon as the foam subsides, the specks on the bottom turn golden and the butter smells of hazelnuts, pour it straight into a cold bowl; in the hot pan it would keep darkening.
• For clarified butter, melt butter over gentle heat, skim off the white foam and carefully pour the clear yellow fat off the milky layer at the bottom.
• For ghee, keep the butter simmering gently until it stops spitting and the solids on the bottom turn golden, then strain it through muslin or a paper filter.
• Keep clarified butter and ghee in a clean, dry, closed jar somewhere cool and scoop with a dry spoon; water and crumbs shorten their life.
• For searing and frying, use clarified butter or ghee; plain butter belongs over gentle heat, and with fierce heat add it to the oil only at the end, for flavour.

If it goes wrong

Butter with just a few dark specks: pour it quickly into a cold bowl, strain it through a fine sieve or paper and taste; it is often still good. Black solids and an acrid, bitter smell can't be fixed – pour the butter away and start again, it only takes a few minutes. If ghee turns grainy as it sets, that's fine; the fat has simply crystallised. Reheat cloudy clarified butter with droplets of water at the bottom once more until the water has gone, and strain it.