Beurre Noisette
Brown butter — butter cooked until the solids toast
Butter cooked until the milk solids toast and it smells of hazelnuts, which is what noisette means. Five minutes' work that makes an entirely different ingredient — for fish, brown butter cakes, pasta with sage, or anywhere butter is already going.
Use a light-coloured pan. In a black one you cannot see the colour and you will overshoot.
Ingredients
- 8 ounces (2 sticks) unsalted butter
- A pinch of salt
Instructions
- Melt the butter in a light-coloured saucepan over medium heat.
- It will foam, then the foam will subside and the crackling of evaporating water will quieten. That quiet is the signal to pay attention.
- Swirl the pan and watch the solids at the bottom. When they turn golden brown and the butter smells nutty, 5 to 7 minutes, take it off the heat immediately.
- Pour into a cool bowl at once — the residual heat of the pan will carry it to burnt in under a minute.
- Add a pinch of salt. Keep the toasted solids for flavour, or strain them out for a clear butter.
Notes
- Add a squeeze of lemon and capers and it is beurre noisette meunière, for sole or skate.
- Cooled and solidified, it can replace melted butter in cookies and financiers.
- Used in Sauce Noisette, the hollandaise derivative.