Melting butter

[Fire Me Boy!]

Anyone here want to chat about melting butter?

I gotta be honest - I use the microwave almost entirely when I need to melt butter, unless I'm doing it just to cook with it on the stove. But sometimes, baked goods or breads require melted butter, so that goes in the microwave.

But I hate when some of the water in the butter explodes, and sends half your butter all over the inside of the science oven. That stuff's hard to clean up.

But if I'm cooking with it, obviously it just goes straight in the pan or pot.

Now, there is one instance where I melt a butt load of butter all at once - when I'm making ghee. I'll put like 2 pounds in the dutch oven and melt that, but then I keep on cooking it until the milk solids separate and start to brown and all the water in the oil boils out. By the way, I wouldn't really recommend cultured butter for this, as you mostly lose all the complexities of the nice butter. I've had equally good experiences with $7/pound butter as the cheaper stuff.

[TimBone]

Originally Posted by loochy

i melt butter with something hot

You mean hot like the chick in the Iowa gif?

[loochy]

Originally Posted by Flybone McTimmerson

You mean hot like the chick in the Iowa gif?

that girl could melt my butter ALL DAY LONG

knowhatimsayin

[Fire Me Boy!]

Originally Posted by Eric Fisher

And on top of that, Billy Burger built a bigger better burger. A bigger better burger Billy Burger built.

I'll bet Billy's bigger better burger didn't have any goddamn Goldfish crackers in it.

[RustShack]

Slow melt on the stove... I've done it in the oven on low a few times too.

[TLO]

Anyone want to talk about gunt butter?

[Iowanian]

Tell about the schmegma you found on your keyboard.

[Just Passin' By]

Allowing butter to reach room temperature first can really make things easy and quick, and it can help avoid the explosion you can get in the microwave.

[Skyy God]

So, apparently "go get the butter" is infamous for referring to butt sex. Who knew?

[Stewie]

When I see commercials for the mortgage company James B. Nutter in KC, all I see is James Nut Butter. I'm ****ed up.

You'll see it that way now. Sorry!

[Dinny Bossa Nova]

Hey FMB, I am sure you posted it somewhere before, so a thousand pardons for failure to exhaust the search function, but...

Would you be kind enough to re-post your ghee recipe? Recommendations for butter to start with would be great, as well.

TIA and Ciao
Dinny

[Pablo]

I feel like I've been cheated out of precious moments of life after reading more than a couple of paragraphs about melting butter.

1/5 stars for the thread. Would not read again.

[Stewie]

I make ghee in a fat separator. It's pretty simple. Put a stick of butter in the separator and microwave for about one minute. Let sit and separate. The timing depends on the microwave and the separator, but you get the idea.

[Fire Me Boy!]

Originally Posted by Stewie

I make ghee in a fat separator. It's pretty simple. Put a stick of butter in the separator and microwave for about one minute. Let sit and separate. The timing depends on the microwave and the separator, but you get the idea.

This isn't really ghee. What you've described is clarified butter (nothing wrong with that, it's very tasty in its own right). While ghee is a form of clarified butter, in order for it to become ghee you actually need to get some of those milk solids to caramelize a bit.

In depth, if anyone cares: http://www.willcookforfriends.com/20...ak-friday.html

[Fire Me Boy!]

Originally Posted by Dinny Blues

Hey FMB, I am sure you posted it somewhere before, so a thousand pardons for failure to exhaust the search function, but...

Would you be kind enough to re-post your ghee recipe? Recommendations for butter to start with would be great, as well.

TIA and Ciao
Dinny

I like to do it in the oven, but it takes less time on the stove top (but you have to keep a close eye on it).

Put a pound of butter into a Dutch oven (light colored interior is best so you can see the color). Set oven to 250 and start looking in on it after an hour. You're looking for the bubbling to subside, which is the water boiling out. Then you're looking for the milk solids to turn golden brown. Once you're satisfied with the browning and water being gone, take it of the oven and let it cool awhile.

As for getting the particles out, strain it through a clean tea towel or coffee filter. No need to skim, no worry about bits falling into it. Very simple.

And the ghee will keep for 6 months at room temp, or pretty much indefinitely in the fridge.

[Stewie]

Originally Posted by Fried Meat Ball!

This isn't really ghee. What you've described is clarified butter (nothing wrong with that, it's very tasty in its own right). While ghee is a form of clarified butter, in order for it to become ghee you actually need to get some of those milk solids to caramelize a bit.

In depth, if anyone cares: http://www.willcookforfriends.com/20...ak-friday.html

This is true, but my Indian colleague makes it this way. To make "real" ghee things go far beyond caramelizing milk solids. They don't bother, so why should I?