Clarifying butter

Here’s a quick way to clarify some butter. The normal method was described by Alton Brown on his Food network show “Good Eats”, and involves using a sauce pan and melting the butter over some low heat. Enter: the magical microwave oven.

Things I used:

• 1 quart glass measuring cup (Microwave-safe)
• container to strain the butter into
• cotton-based paper towels (Bounty brand)

Method:

1. Heat the butter in the measuring cup until it completely melts.
2. Let the butter sit for at least a minute. This will allow milk solids to drop to the bottom and float to the top.
3. Skim as much of the top solids as you can using a spoon.
4. Put the paper towel over the other container and strain the butter through it. Go slowly and try to avoid getting the bottom solids into the container. It’s impossible to avoid it completely, but you can save yourself a few steps by leaving most of the solids on the bottom the the measuring cup.
5. Depending on the quality of your paper towels and how many layers you used, you might still have some solids on the bottom. Clean out your now empty measuring cup, dry it thoroughly, and strain the butter into it using some more paper towels.
6. Repeat the process until the solids are filtered out.
7. Transfer the butter into an airtight container and keep the the fridge. Since the milk solids have been removed, the pure fat will soak up funky fridge smells like a sponge so make sure you have a good seal. Also, this operation should extend the expiration time of the butter but since you can’t guarantee a sterile environment I’d stick with the original expiration date.

A few things to note:

Clarified butter is pure animal fat (not lard, but still) so use this stuff sparingly if you value your heart. I would not use this in recipes that call for butter since they rely on milk solids still being there. The main point of clarifying your butter is to push the smoking point of the butter up quite a bit so if you use the smoke as a reference point in any of your recipes you’ll end up with burned food.

My first impressions were very positive. I sauteed some onions and mushrooms for an omelet. It went very well, no smoke, just perfection.

Hope this helps anyone. Enjoy!