Not all the clichés are wrong: Butter truly does make everything tastier and more palatable, sometimes even masking the poor quality of ingredients. What would French pastry be without butter? A sad cracker with little more to offer. A little butter can give richness and depth to almost anything you combine it with – as well as being a good source of fat-soluble vitamins, especially vitamin A and mineral salts.
In the kitchen – and especially in the culinary industry – butter is used for its aggregating properties and in this regard, it cannot be replaced by olive oil, which would make the food greasy and not as compact as it needs to be. This is why there is no reason we should completely eliminate butter from our diet; just be careful not to use too much of it, and try not to make any mistakes when you’re cooking with it.
Read on for our guide to the most common mistakes you should avoid when cooking with butter.
The wrong temperature
Butter is solid and compact at room temperature, and it becomes a liquid once heated. The temperature of the butter – whether you’re cooking on the stove or baking desserts – is fundamental: Butter used at temperatures that are too high will make it too soft, compromising your results for the recipe itself. On the other hand, using butter that is too cold will prevent it from mixing or combining properly with other ingredients. Once the butter is cooked – besides losing several beneficial vitamins – it becomes much less digestible. You can remedy this by using clarified butter, which has a lipid content of over 99%. As the temperature increases, the proteins present in the butter modify their structure, shorten and lose their water. When you use butter in a sauté, it’s best to use one part butter and one part oil. The oil helps with heat contact because it can reach higher temperatures and thus accentuates the Maillard reaction that takes place with an external temperature of 280°F. A typical mistake is putting meat in a pan while it is still cold, immediately cooling the butter (that hasn’t yet reached a high enough temperature, either).
Unauthorized substitutions
Just because it has a butter-like consistency does not mean that coconut oil or other substitutions can be used! If anything, it’s better to use extra-virgin olive oil instead of butter because – again – it burns less quickly.
Adding butter too soon
The reason why butter is so delicious is also why it’s not the best option for cooking at high temperatures: Casein – which gives butter that extraordinary flavor – burns faster than other fats like canola oil (which contains 55% saturated fat, 57% oleic acid, 23% omega-6 and 10-15% omega-3), vegetable oil or extra-virgin olive oil. But there’s a loophole: Add butter to seared meat, seafood and vegetables almost at the end of cooking. The butter will create a fragrant hazelnut-like aroma, and it will also add a nice golden color to the meat.
Not adding other flavors to the butter
No spoiler alert is needed here: Butter is a fat. When making savory recipes, the rich flavor of the butter should be balanced with an acidic note like lemon juice, vinegar, or salt.