The Wheeling Gourmet» Butter

Poached Chicken Breasts with Leek Sauce and Baby Beets

Nicolas Steenhout — Sun, 26 Jun 2011 21:00:18 +0000

Leek is a great Winter vegetable. It goes really well with chicken. The beets, while optional, bring a zest of sugary goodness.

Baked Blue Cod With Beurre Blanc Sauce

Nicolas Steenhout — Thu, 03 Feb 2011 22:54:30 +0000

Beurre Blanc is a classic French sauce, made primarily from butter. Decandent and rich - a little goes a long way. But it's scrumptious and worth it once in a while.

Monter au Beurre

Nicolas Steenhout — Thu, 05 Aug 2010 08:43:44 +0000

"Monter au beurre" literally "build with butter". It is a classic French cooking technique in which you use cold butter to slightly thicken a sauce. It is at the basis of the "beurre blanc" sauce.

The trick is to have very cold butter, and slightly simmering liquid. You put the cold butter in the simmering sauce and stir rapidly. This melts the butter without splitting it from the liquid. You end up with an onctuous, lustruous sauce.

Typically you would use about 30 g (1 tbsp) of butter for about 125 ml (1/2 cup) of sauce, but quantities vary.

Adding a dash of cream to your sauce before adding the butter will help avoiding the butter splitting.

Eggs "En Cocotte" With Bacon and Green Onions

Nicolas Steenhout — Sun, 21 Mar 2010 05:18:39 +0000

Eggs baked in a ramequin with tasty garnish. Very nice, very simple, and quite quick!

Beurre Maître d'Hôtel

Nicolas Steenhout — Sun, 07 Mar 2010 04:13:49 +0000

A simple garnish to go with grilled meats or fish. Don't let its simplicity fool you, Beurre Maître d'Hôtel is a classic well worth serving!

Sweat

Nicolas Steenhout — Wed, 04 Feb 2009 05:37:30 +0000

To cook over low heat with a little oil or butter until the ingredient, usualy vegetables, is soft and transluscent.

This is called "to sweat" because the ingredients tend to release their juices, as if they were sweating.

Mixing Oil & Butter

Nicolas Steenhout — Wed, 04 Feb 2009 01:32:38 +0000

Use half vegetable oil and half butter (not margarine) when you panfry foods on high heat in a pan.

The butter will give some taste while the oil will prevent the butter from burning.

Don't use olive oil! The taste of the oil and the butter are likely to compete. Also olive oil burns at too low a temperature.

Butter's smoke point at 140°C. To panfry effectively you need higher heat than that. So using a taste-neutral oil with a much higher smoke point is better. I like using refined canola oil (smoke point: 240°C) or refined soybean oil (smoke point: 232°C)

More information on oils smoke points from Wikipedia.