Jane Grigson's Fish Book - Jane Grigson [9]
Concentrated butter is sometimes available. It is a little better for frying than butter, but as it has some milk solids put back in it, it does not fry at such a hot temperature as clarified butter. It is, however, easy to clarify.
BEURRE MANIÉ
This is a kneaded butter – a useful substance for thickening sauces, soups and stews at the end of the cooking time. A tablespoon of butter is mashed together with a tablespoon of flour to form a paste. This is divided into knobs, which are stirred one by one into the almost boiling liquid until it reaches the desired thickness. Allow 5 minutes over a moderate or slow heat. If the sauce begins to boil it will taste floury.
This sounds odd – one simmers a béchamel or velouté sauce for at least 20 minutes to lose the flavour of flour in the roux. But with beurre manié one keeps the sauce below simmering point and cooks it for no longer than 5 minutes with exactly the same purpose.
BEURRE NOISETTE
Butter cooked to a golden-brown, in other words to a nut or noisette colour. Capers, lemon juice and parsley are often added. A last minute sauce, an essential part of Raie au beurre noir, p. 487.
SAVOURY BUTTERS
ANISE BUTTER Mix 1 tablespoon Pernod or pastis with 125 g (4 oz) butter.
BEURRE COLBERT Add 2 teaspoons of finely chopped tarragon to the beurre maître d’hôtel below, plus 2 or 3 tablespoons of meat glaze or rich meat jelly from underneath beef dripping.
BEURRE MAÎTRE D’HÔTEL As far as fish is concerned, this is the most useful of the savoury butters, particularly with grilled sole, salmon, turbot, cod – in fact, with almost any other fish.
250 g (8 oz) lightly salted butter
60–75 g (2–2½ oz) chopped parsley
lemon juice to taste
Soften the butter to a thick cream, then mix in the parsley and lemon juice. Mint, savory, tarragon or chive butter can be made by substituting the herb for all or part of the parsley.
You can form the butter into a roll, wrap it in foil and store it in the refrigerator; then neat round slices can be cut off as required.
GARLIC BUTTER Cream 250 g (8 oz) unsalted butter. Add 3 large cloves of garlic, finely chopped, 30 g (1 oz) chopped shallot, onion or spring onion, 50 g (1½ oz) chopped parsley, 1–2 teaspoons of fine sea salt, and freshly ground black pepper. This butter is especially useful for mussels and shellfish baked in scallop shells or small pots.
LIME BUTTER Lime butter is even nicer with fish than maître d’hôtel. Here is a recipe for it given by Skeffington Ardron in The Guardian.
To 60 g (2 oz) lightly salted butter, add 2 teaspoons fresh lime juice, 2 teaspoons grated peel, 1 teaspoon chopped chives, a pinch of powdered thyme, and a very small pinch of grated ginger.
MONTPELLIER BUTTER (Elizabeth David’s version) Weigh out 125 g (4 oz) of the following, in approximately equal amounts – watercress, spinach and tarragon leaves, parsley, chervil. If you grow salad burnet, the French pimprenelle, add some of that, too. If you have no chervil, double the quantity of parsley.
Pour boiling water over the herbs, leave for 1 minute, then drain and dry as completely as possible. Pound in a mortar, with 6 anchovy fillets, 2 tablespoons capers, 4 miniature gherkins, the yolks of 1 raw and 3 hard-boiled eggs. When all is smooth, mash into 125 g (4 oz) soft butter. Sieve and mix in 5 or 6 tablespoons of olive oil gradually. Finally sharpen with a little lemon juice. Store, covered, in the refrigerator where it will keep for several days, but remove in good time or it will be too hard to spread over the cold salmon, or whatever other fish you are eating it with. It can also be served with hot grilled, fried or poached fish.
I find that this process is much speeded by using a blender. Put the herbs and pickles in together, using the olive oil to keep them moving. When smooth add the eggs and mash into the softened butter by hand, or use an electric beater.
MUSHROOM BUTTER Cream 250 g (8 oz)