Beurre Noir
This sauce is poured over fried fish or boiled fish just before serving. Two tablespoons of butter; one tablespoon of vinegar; one tablespoon of chopped parsley; one teaspoon of lemon juice; one-half teaspoon of salt; one-fourth teaspoon of pepper. Place the butter in a frying-pan, and when it is hot, add the other ingredients. Boil up once, and serve.
BUTTER SAUCE À LA CRÉOLE-Take one cup of cold water, one tablespoon of butter and one of flour. Mix over the fire, stirring constantly. When the mixture boils, stir in quickly (for a large quantity) one-fourth pound of fresh butter and add, by degrees, another cup of cold water to keep the butter from oiling. Stir in the juice of a lemon and strain. It must be served at once and hot. It becomes oily if kept long. A spoon of chopped parsley may be added.
BROWNED BUTTER (Used for Coloring Gravies, Sauces, etc.)- Place a small piece of butter in a hot frying-pan and toss about until it turns brown. Stir browned flour into it until it is smooth and commences to boil.
BROWNED FLOUR (Used for Coloring and Thickening Many Dishes)-Spread flour on a tin platter and place on the stove or in a very hot oven. When it begins to color stir constantly until evenly browned throughout. Cork closely in jars.
Four short entries that together make up a working set of butter sauces: an emulsion, a browned butter, and the browned flour that colors both. Each is fast, and each fails in a specific way if rushed or held.
- Brown the butter properlyThe name means black butter, and much of the flavor comes from browning the milk solids to a dark hazelnut color, which takes a couple of minutes over medium-high heat once the foaming stops. The instruction to add the other ingredients "when it is hot" undersells this; hot but pale butter tastes of nothing.
- Adding the vinegarAcid hitting hot fat spatters hard. Pull the pan off the heat, stand back, add the vinegar and lemon juice, then return it to the burner for the single boil-up. Add the parsley last so it stays green.
- YieldThe recipe gives no yield; the two tablespoons of butter is roughly enough for two servings of fish. Double it for four and use a pan wide enough that the butter is a thin film, or it browns unevenly.
- The Créole butter sauce is an emulsionThis is the hinge: the quarter pound of butter must be beaten into a simmering base, not melted in it, and the second cup of cold water is there to hold the temperature down. If it goes much above a simmer the emulsion breaks and you get oily butter with water beneath. The warning that "it becomes oily if kept long" is literal, so make it at the last minute.
- A quarter pound of butterFour ounces, one American stick, 115 g. Cut it cold into small cubes before you start so it goes in quickly.
- Browned flour, oven and stove"A very hot oven" is not defined in the book; period tables generally reckon it at 450F or above. A heavy skillet on the stovetop is easier to control: keep the flour moving and expect ten to twenty minutes to reach an even tan. It scorches from the bottom up and turns bitter in seconds once it does.
- What browned flour is forToasting reduces the starch's thickening power; a well-browned flour is commonly reckoned to thicken about half as much as raw flour, though it depends how far the browning is taken. Old recipes calling for it want the color and the toasted flavor; increase the quantity if you are relying on it to thicken.
- Storage"Cork closely in jars" means airtight. Cooled completely and sealed, browned flour keeps for months in a cupboard; any warmth or damp and it cakes and goes stale-tasting.
Beurre noir is classically the partner of skate, raie au beurre noir, usually with capers thrown into the pan at the end. This version is the domestic reduction of that idea: butter, vinegar, parsley, and no more. What is telling about the grouping is the company it keeps on the page. The Créole butter sauce and the two browning entries belong to a period when a home cook had no bottled gravy browning, no bouillon cube and no stock concentrate, so a jar of flour toasted on the back of the stove did the work of coloring and thickening that a manufacturer now does. Browned flour is a staple of Louisiana cookery in particular, where a dark dry roux is still made the same way.