by Julia Child
The trick in making a beurre blanc is to prevent the butter from turning oily like melted butter; it must retain its warm, thick, creamy consistency. A chemical process takes place once the base is boiled down and the acids are well concentrated so that the milk solids remain in suspension rather than sinking to the bottom of the pan. We give two methods here, first the classic way where the butter is slowly creamed in, and second the newer fast-boil system. In either case you may beat in more butter than the amount given, but if you beat in less you may have too acid-tasting a sauce.
For about 1 cup
The flavor base
A 6-cup medium-weight, stainless saucepan
2½ Tb white-wine vinegar
2½ Tb dry white wine, vermouth, or lemon juice
1 Tb very finely minced shallots or green onions
½ tsp salt
⅛ tsp white pepper
2 Tb butter
Boil the liquid, shallots or onions, and seasonings with the butter until reduced to a syrupy consistency—about 1½ tablespoons should remain.
The butter—Added the classic way
A wire whip
8 ounces (2 sticks) best quality unsalted butter, well chilled, and cut into 16 pieces
Salt, pepper, and lemon juice as needed
Remove saucepan from heat and immediately beat in 2 pieces of chilled butter. As the butter softens and creams in the liquid, beat in another piece. Then set the saucepan over very low heat and, beating constantly, continue adding successive pieces of butter as each previous piece has almost creamed into the sauce. The sauce will be thick and ivory-colored, the consistency of a light hollandaise. Immediately remove from heat as soon as all the butter has been used. Beat in additional seasonings to taste.
OR—Adding butter—The fast-boil way
Make the same flavor base described above, and cut the same amount of butter into pieces; however, the butter need not be chilled. Bring the reduced flavor base to the fast boil and start beating in butter piece by piece—it will at once produce thick creamy bubbles. When all the butter has been added, boil for 2 seconds only and pour the sauce into a bowl or another saucepan to stop the cooking. (If you continue boiling you will reduce the sauce base liquid to nothing and the butter will quickly clarify itself—no more creamy sauce.)
Holding the sauce. It will thin out and turn oily almost at once if you reheat it or if you keep it too warm. Hold it over barely tepid water, or place it near the faint heat of a gas pilot light, or on the slightly warm shelf over a cooktop. If it does thin out, cream it by beating a spoonful of sauce in a cold mixing bowl, gradually beat in the rest by very small spoonfuls; reheat it by beating in dribbles (2 to 3 tablespoons in all) of hot liquid such as wine, concentrated meat juices, or heavy cream.
VARIATION
Beurre au Citron
[Lemon Butter Sauce]
For: broiled or boiled fish, asparagus, broccoli, cauliflower
A minor variation of beurre blanc, and very nice with fish or vegetables.
For about ½ cup
A 2- to 4-cup, medium-weight, enameled saucepan
¼ cup lemon juice
⅛ tsp salt
Pinch of white pepper
Boil down the lemon juice with the salt and pepper until it has reduced to 1 tablespoon.
A wire whip
4 ounces (1 stick) chilled butter cut into 8 pieces
Remove from heat and immediately beat in 2 pieces of chilled butter. Set over very low heat and beat in the rest of the butter, a piece at a time, to make a thick, creamy sauce. Immediately remove from heat.
2 to 3 Tb hot fish or vegetable stock or hot water
Just before serving, beat in the hot liquid by driblets to warm the sauce. Correct seasoning and serve in a barely warmed sauceboat.
BEURRE NOIR-BEURRE NOISETTE
[Brown Butter Sauce]
For: shirred eggs, calf’s brains, boiled or sautéed fish, chicken breasts, vegetables
A properly made brown butter sauce has a deliciously nutty smell and taste, but is never black despite the poesy of the title. When you heat butter to the boil, its milk solids begin to darken from golden nutty, noisette, to golden brown, noir, but you never let it darken to black, burned, and bitter. It is a quick sauce, and you can make it right in the pan when you are serving it over browned foods like liver or sautéed chicken breasts. For pale foods like poached eggs or poached calf’s brains, make it separately and pour the browned butter off the dark sediment in the pan.
For about ¾ cup, serving 6 to 8
6 ounces (1½ sticks) butter
Salt and pepper
3 to 4 Tb fresh minced parsley
3 to 4 Tb wine vinegar or lemon juice, or 1 to 2 Tb capers
Making the sauce in the sauté pan—just before serving
Cut the butter into pieces, and add to pan after food has been sautéed and removed. Salt and pepper food if necessary, and sprinkle the parsley over it. Holding sauté pan by handle, swirl over moderate heat as butter foams up; it will begin to color as foam subsides. At the moment the butter is a nutty brown—a matter of seconds—pour it over the food. Then add the vinegar, lemon juice or capers to the pan, rapidly boil down to reduce excess acidity, pour over the brown butter, and serve at once.
Making the sauce separately—may be done in advance
Cut the butter into pieces and add to a small saucepan. Swirl pan by its handle over moderate heat as butter melts and foams up. Continue cooking for a few seconds as foam subsides and butter starts to color. As soon as it is a nutty brown, remove from heat and let sediment settle for a moment. Either pour clear brown butter over hot food that you have seasoned and sprinkled with parsley, or pour the butter off its sediment and into a bowl or another pan. Rinse out butter pan, add vinegar, lemon juice or capers, and boil down rapidly to reduce excess acidity. Either pour over the food and serve; or pour the browned butter back in, set aside, and reheat before serving.
COLD FLAVORED BUTTERS
Beurres Composés
Butter can be put to a variety of appetizing uses when it has been creamed with herbs, wine, mustard, egg yolks, shellfish meat, or other flavorings.
On Hot Dishes: Place a piece of cold flavored butter on top of grilled fish or meat just as it is sent to the table.
For Basting: Baste meat, fish, or mushrooms with flavored butter as it cooks in oven.
Sauce and Soup Enrichment: Stir flavored butter into a sauce or soup just before serving.
Egg Filling or Sandwich Spread: Cream butter, egg yolks, and herbs together and use as a filling for hard-boiled eggs, or as a sandwich spread.
Decorations: Fill a pastry bag with chilled but still malleable flavored butter and squeeze it out in fancy designs to decorate appetizers or cold dishes.
Cutout Designs: Spread flavored butter on a plate and chill it. Then dip a knife or cutter in hot water and form fancy shapes for canapés or cold dishes.
HOW TO CREAM BUTTER
[Beurre en Pommade]
The butter must always be creamed or beaten before the flavoring is added to it. You can blend the butter to a cream in an electric beater, pound it in a bowl with a pestle, or mash it, a bit at a time, with the back of a wooden spoon, then beat it vigorously until it is light and creamy. Then the flavorings and the butter are creamed together, and the mixture is put in a cool place to firm up. If it is refrigerated, it will become as hard as an ordinary piece of chilled butter.
Beurre de Moutarde
[Mustard Butter]
For: kidneys, liver, steaks, broiled fish, and sauce enrichments
½ cup butter
1 to 2 Tb prepared mustard, the strong Dijon type
Salt and pepper to taste
Optional: 2 Tb fresh minced parsley or mixed green herbs
Cream the butter well. A half-teaspoon at a time, beat in the mustard. Beat in seasonings and optional parsley or mixed herbs to taste.
Beurre d’Anchois
[Anchovy Butter]
For: broiled fish, egg fillings, sandwiches, sauce enrichments
½ cup butter
2 Tb mashed canned anchovies or 1 Tb anchovy paste
Pepper
Lemon juice to taste
Optional: 1 to 2 Tb minced parsley or mixed green herbs
Cream the butter well. A half-teaspoon at a time, beat in the anchovies or anchovy paste. Season to taste with pepper, drops of lemon juice, and optional herbs.
Beurre d’Ail
[Garlic Butter]
For: broiled or boiled fish, steaks, hamburgers, lamb chops, boiled potatoes, canapés, sauce and soup enrichments
The smoothest and best-tasting result will be obtained if the garlic is pounded to a paste with a pestle and the butter is gradually pounded into it. A garlic press may be used if you have not the time or patience to pound, but the result will not be as good either in flavor or in texture.
2 to 8 cloves garlic
1 quart boiling water
Set the unpeeled cloves of garlic in the boiling water, bring to the boil for 5 seconds. Drain, peel, and rinse under cold water. Bring to the boil again for 30 seconds, drain, and rinse. Pound to a smooth paste in a mortar (or put through a garlic press).
½ cup butter
Salt and pepper
Optional: 1 to 2 Tb minced parsley or mixed green herbs
Pound or cream the butter and garlic together. Season to taste with the salt, pepper, and optional herbs.
Beurre à l’Oeuf
[Egg Yolk Butter]
For: sandwiches, canapés, hard-boiled eggs, and general decoration
½ cup butter
Cream the butter well.
4 sieved hard-boiled egg yolks
Salt and pepper
Optional: 1 to 2 Tb minced chives or mixed green herbs.
Beat the sieved egg yolks into the butter and season to taste with salt, pepper, and optional herbs.
Beurre Maître d’Hôtel
[Parsley Butter]
Beurre de Fines Herbes
[Mixed Herb Butter]
Beurre d’Estragon
[Tarragon Butter]
For: broiled meats and fish, and for sauce and soup enrichments
½ cup butter
1 Tb lemon juice
2 to 3 Tb fresh minced parsley, or mixed green herbs, or tarragon (or dried tarragon and fresh parsley)
Salt and pepper
Cream the butter. Drop by drop, beat in the lemon juice. Then beat in the herbs, and season to taste with salt and pepper.
Beurre Colbert
[Tarragon Butter with Meat Flavoring]
For: broiled meats and fish
Ingredients for the preceding butter using tarragon
1 Tb melted meat glaze (meat stock reduced to a syrup)
Drop by drop, beat the meat glaze into the tarragon butter.
Beurre pour Escargots
[Snail Butter]
For: snails, broiled meats and fish; for basting baked or broiled fish or mushrooms; for broiled mussels, clams, or oysters
½ cup butter
2 Tb minced shallots or green onions
1 to 3 cloves mashed garlic, depending on your taste for garlic
2 Tb minced parsley
Salt and pepper
Cream the butter well. Twist the shallots or onions into a ball in the corner of a towel to extract their juice. Beat them into the butter with the garlic and parsley. Season to taste with salt and pepper.
Beurre Marchand de Vins
[Shallot Butter with Red Wine]
For: steaks, hamburgers, liver, and enrichment of brown sauces
¼ cup red wine
1 Tb minced shallot or green onions
1 Tb meat glaze or ½ cup brown stock or canned beef bouillon
Big pinch of pepper
Boil the wine with the shallots or onions, meat flavoring, and pepper until the liquid has reduced to about 1 ½ tablespoons. Let it cool.
½ cup butter
1 to 2 Tb minced parsley
Salt and pepper
Cream the butter well, then beat it, a tablespoon at a time, into the wine flavoring. Beat in the parsley, and season to taste.
Beurre Bercy
[Shallot Butter with White Wine]
For: steaks, hamburgers, liver, and enrichment of brown sauces
Ingredients for the preceding shallot butter, but substitute dry white wine or vermouth for the red wine
Follow the preceding recipe, then proceed to the optional next step.
Optional: 3 to 4 Tb diced beef marrow softened for 3 or 4 minutes in hot salted water
Stir in the optional beef marrow along with the final seasonings.
Beurre de Crustacés
[Shellfish Butter]
For: sandwich spreads, canapés, hard-boiled eggs, decoration of cold dishes; for enrichment of shellfish sauces and bisques, and canned and frozen shellfish soups
Shellfish butters are made with the cooked debris, such as legs, chests, eggs, and green matter of lobster, crab, crayfish, or shrimps. The red shells color the butter a creamy rose, and both shell and bits of flesh give a lovely flavor to the mixture. You can also make shellfish butter with the meat alone, and color the butter with a bit of tomato paste.
Traditionally, the shells and meat are placed in a large marble mortar, and are pounded into a purée with a heavy wooden pestle. Then they are pounded with the butter so every bit is thoroughly mixed together. Finally the whole mass is forced through a fine-meshed drum sieve to remove all minute pieces of shell. This long and arduous process needs no further explanation. You just pound; the result is exquisite. An excellent butter may be made in an electric blender in a fraction of the time:
For about ⅔ cup
1 cup cooked shellfish debris OR ½ cup cooked, whole, unpeeled shrimp Or ½ cup cooked shellfish meat and 1½ Tb tomato paste
Chop the debris or meat into ¼-inch pieces, or put it through a meat grinder.
¼ lb (½ cup) hot melted butter
Fill the electric blender jar with hot water to heat it thoroughly. Empty and dry quickly. Then add the shellfish. Immediately pour in the hot melted butter, cover, and blend at top speed. The butter will cream into a stiff paste in a few seconds. Pour the mixture into a saucepan, heat until the butter has warmed and melted. Blend again. Repeat, if you feel it necessary.
A fine-meshed sieve set over a bowl
A pestle or wooden spoon
Salt and white pepper
Rub through a very fine sieve, extracting as much butter and shellfish meat as possible. As the butter cools and partially congeals, beat it with a wooden spoon. Season to taste with salt and pepper.
(*) May be frozen.
Second pressing
To extract the remaining butter and flavor from the debris left in the sieve, steep the debris in an equal amount of almost simmering water for 5 minutes in a saucepan over very low heat. Strain, and chill. The congealed butter on top of the liquid may be used for sauce enrichments. The liquid itself may serve as the basis for a fish stock.
OTHER SAUCES
Following is a list of regional or special sauces described in recipes elsewhere in this book.
Sauce Speciale à l’Ail pour Gigot, a special garlic sauce for roast lamb
Sauce Moutarde à la Normande, a cream and mustard sauce for pork
Sauce Nénette, cream, mustard, and tomato sauce for pork or boiled beef
Sauce Fondue de Fromage, a creamy, wine-flavored cheese sauce with a whiff of garlic, in the Poached Egg section. This is also good for vegetables, fish, chicken, or pastas which are to be gratinéed under a broiler, or as a spread for hot hors d’oeuvres that are to be browned quickly in the oven or under the broiler.
Sauce Chaud-froid, Blanche-neige, a reduction of heavy cream, meat, poultry, or fish stock, and tarragon, plus gelatin. For coating cold chicken, fish, or cold molded mousses. This is an excellent cold sauce, and in our opinion far more delicate than the traditional sauce cha
ud-froid made from a flour-thickened velouté. See the recipes for cold breast of chicken on this page, for crab on this page, and for fish mousse on this page.
STOCKS AND ASPICS
Fonds de Cuisine — Gelée
The wonderful flavor of good French food is the result, more often than not, of the stock used for its cooking, its flavoring, or its sauce. The French term fonds de cuisine means literally the foundation and working capital of the kitchen. A stock is the liquid obtained from the simmering together of meat, bones—or fish trimmings—with vegetables, seasonings, and water. This liquid, strained, and boiled down to concentrate its flavor if necessary, is the basis for soups, the moistening element for stews, braised meats, or vegetables, and the liquid used in making all the sauces that have a meat or fish flavoring. Stocks are extremely easy to make, and can simmer quietly by themselves with little or no attention from the cook. They may be frozen and stored for weeks, or they may be boiled down until all their water content has evaporated, and they become a glace de viande, or flavor concentrate.