Clarified Butter

Yes I am using a whole blog entry for butter.

How do chefs perfectly sear a scallop with out burning or over caramelizing it?

Butter fat. 

Butter has three parts to it.

Milk Bodies, fat, and water.

Ever throw a tab of butter in a hot pan?  It melts, gets brown then burns.

Whatever you try to cook in that burned butter will blacken as well, even if its not cooked.

If you remove the milk bodies, and the water the fat will not burn and whatever is cooked in it will caramelize wonderfully.  It has a high heat capacity so you can cook smoken hot and really fast.  Butter adds a wonderful creamy taste to whatever you are cooking as well. 

The microwave:

In a microwave safe container, I use a Pyrex measuring cup, stuff in several sticks of butter.

 

 

Nuke it on high until it all melts.

Let it sit.

The butter will separate into three layers.  Water on the bottom, fat in the middle, and milk bodies float to the top.

With a spoon carefully ladle off the milk bodies off of the top.

Now you can easily ladle the fat into a sauté and use it as is.

Here the milk bodies have been skimmed off.

In a water bath:

I use a small hotel pan, and a Bain Marie Pan.  I place the hotel pan on the back of my range and fill it with water.  The Bain Marie goes in the water and I fill it with sticks of butter.  I heat the water and let the butter melt.  When it has separated I skim off the milk bodies.  I have a ladle that is in the Bain Marie while I am cooking.  Any time I need butter, I simply reach over and ladle in what I need.

 

Once the butter has been cleaned you can turn off the heat.  If it starts to re-coagulate turn it back on and melt it again.  When done cooking cover with Saran Wrap and refrigerate.

In the pan:

 

Vodka Sauce…. (Frenchafied)

I think I make a pretty good sauce and some of my Italian friends shamefully agree. No I do not have a little hairy chinned grandmother from Napoli. But I still do pretty good. What I love about Italian food is that is follows the same basic laws that French food does or any other great food does. It’s all about effort, and the ingredients. Having said that, you can greatly improve this recipe by using fresh sauce and homemade stock or gods forbid a homemade double stock!!!

Sauce:
1 Large Spanish onion finely diced
6-10 cloves of garlic finely minced
Several Tbs Olive Oil
Salt
Pepper
2 cups Good dry white wine
8 oz. can Tomato Sauce
8 oz. can Tomato Puree
6 oz. can Tomato Paste
1 – 2 cups Heavy Cream

In a Dutch oven on the stove top, add the olive oil, onion, garlic, salt and pepper. Over high heat sweat the aromatics. When they have become translucent and before any start to brown add the wine, and chicken stock. Reduce about 2/3’s.

Add the tomato sauce and puree. Let it reduce until it starts to thicken up. This usually takes at least half an hour. If you stir constantly you bring supper hot sauce to the top and it will evaporate faster. This is a basic process used to reduce stocks sauces or soups. Add the paste and be sure to stir it in. Search the sauce for left over clumps of paste and spin until you cannot find any more. Paste is one of the fundamental thickening agents in good food. The sauce should really start to thicken up now. Add the cream. Further reduce until it approaches the classic Jar consistency.

That’s it!!! Simple!

What’s really going on… Every single decent savory dish has a stock base of one type or the other. Since vodka sauce is meatless we need stock and plenty of it. I say 2 cups but 3 or 4 aint gonna hurt. More stock means more reducing time. The final product will be richer, and have much better depth.

Next: Dutch Oven?? Grandma Agapito would smack you across the back of the head for such a non-Mediterranean pot!! What it offers is great evaporative square footage, and decent volume. A stock pot leans to taller than wider. More surface area means more evaporation, aka faster reduction…

Wine? It’s called Vodka sauce!!!! Now a days Vodka is distilled whatever and the cleanest water you can find…. Aka flavorless… Ok if you have an old bottle of real Russian Stoli use that… otherwise we need the Bourgogne…

A note about Pasta: 2 times more water than you think it will take, and a light handful of kosher salt, cover it, and get a rolling boil. When you add the pasta, a large pot will not lose as much temperature. It will come right back to a boil or never stop boiling. After dropping in the pasta, lid it!! Once it starts to boil again, take off the lid or it will boil over. You have to season pasta!!! The salt will make it taste like that awesome pasta you had somewhere and you did not believe the cook that told you that there was nothing special about it. If using boxed or bagged pasta, cook it about a minute or so less than the directions say. Then you have to pay attention and test it. Pull out a noodle, douse it in cold water, and bite it.. When it is how you like it pour into a colander and rinse..

Adding olive oil to the water does nothing to the pasta.. hmmm oil floats, will not absorb in water and you pasta is on the bottom of the pot.. I have a better chance of getting pregnant than that pasta has of doing any kind of mingling with the oil. However some chefs say, it helps to keep the water from boiling over. If you are using fresh pasta……… then you know what you are doing.. I won’t insult you with silly advice..