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BUTTER, BROWN (German method)
Take any quantity of butter required to be browned, and put it into an iron saucepan over a slow fire. Stir until it assumes the colour wanted, taking care that it does not burn. What is required to be dipped in this brown butter should be prepared beforehand, and dipped just before serving. Time, about ten minutes.
A one-ingredient preparation that lives or dies on attention: what is being described is browned butter, and the whole technique is knowing when to stop.
- The hinge: pull it earlyThe milk solids go from hazelnut brown to acrid black in a matter of seconds, and the pan holds enough heat to keep cooking after it leaves the burner. Take it off a shade lighter than you want and pour it out of the hot pan at once.
- Use your nose and a pale panAn iron saucepan, as specified, hides the colour of the sediment. A stainless or light-lined pan lets you watch the specks on the bottom; the smell shifts from creamy to nutty just before it is ready.
- \Low to medium-low on a modern hob. The butter must foam, spit, and go quiet as the water boils off before any browning happens; rushing that stage scorches the solids while the fat is still watery.
- Ten minutes is for a real quantityThe stated time presumably assumes a substantial amount; the recipe itself says only 'any quantity'. Two or three tablespoons in a wide pan will be done in three to four minutes, so ignore the clock and watch the sediment.
- Salted or unsaltedVictorian butter was often salted, sometimes heavily, and salt concentrates as the water cooks away. Unsalted butter gives a cleaner result and lets you season at the end.
- Strain or don'tFor a smooth sauce, pour through a fine sieve or muslin to catch the browned solids. For vegetables and fish, leave them in — they carry most of the flavour.
- What gets dippedThe recipe does not say what is to be dipped; likely candidates are boiled cauliflower, asparagus, salsify, brains or fish, already hot and drained. Cold food chills the butter and turns it greasy, so have everything ready as instructed and combine at the last moment.
- QuantityReckon about 2 tablespoons of butter per person as a sauce for a vegetable course; butter is about 15–18 per cent water, most of which cooks off during browning.
Browned butter is a foundation rather than a dish — French kitchens call it beurre noisette, hazelnut butter, for its colour and smell, and take it further still to beurre noir for skate and brains. The "German method" label may reflect the Central and Northern European habit of pouring browned butter, often with crumbs, over boiled vegetables, dumplings and freshwater fish, a treatment found from Austria through Poland to Scandinavia. That such a plain operation warranted its own dictionary entry says something about the period: butter was costly, and burning a half-pound of it was a household loss worth writing instructions against.