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Crayfish Butter
Take the shells and small claws of some crayfish, place them in a mortar with a large piece of butter and pound until they become a paste. Put this into a stewpan and the stewpan into a bain-marie. When the mixture is quite hot pass it through a tammy into a basin of cold water and let the butter rise to the top; it is then ready for use. A second method is to pick the meat from the tails of a dozen crayfish, dry the shells and pound them all together in a mortar, adding one ounce of good butter. Put all into a saucepan on a moderate fire, stirring until it clarifies, then strain it through a napkin, letting it fall into cold water. When congealed, take it out and place in a warm basin, stirring until it takes the color.
A compound butter made by pounding shellfish shells with butter, melting it out, and chilling it clean. The technique is unchanged; only the equipment and the vagueness of the quantities need translating.
- The hinge: never let it brownThe butter must stay below the point where the milk solids color, or the delicate shell flavor turns nutty and the pink goes brown. That is the whole reason for the bain-marie in the first method; if you work directly on the burner as in the second, use the lowest setting and stir constantly.
- Bain-marieA water bath. Set the pan in a wider pan of simmering water, or use a bowl over barely simmering water. The butter melts and infuses without ever approaching a temperature that would scorch it.
- Tammy and napkinA tammy was a worsted straining cloth. A double layer of damp cheesecloth in a fine sieve does the same job, and squeezing it hard will recover butter still held in the pulp.
- MortarA food processor handles the shells better than a mortar, though it will not reduce them as finely. Pulse the shells with the cold butter to a coarse paste, then let the straining do the separating. Shell fragments are meant to be left behind.
- Quantities are loose"A large piece of butter" gives no figure. The second method's one ounce of butter to a dozen crayfish will yield only a very small quantity; for a usable amount, work at roughly 8 oz butter to the shells of 1 to 2 lb of crayfish.
- CrayfishWhole cooked crawfish, sold frozen in the South and in Scandinavian and Chinese markets, are the obvious source. Shrimp or lobster shells can be treated the same way for a butter of the same kind under a different name, and shells saved and frozen over several meals work perfectly well.
- Setting in cold waterPouring the strained fat into cold water lets the butterfat float and congeal while the water carries off residual liquid and grit. Lift the disc off, blot it dry, and knead it smooth. Refrigerated it keeps about a week; frozen, several months.
- What it is forShellfish butters of this kind were used to finish crayfish bisque, sauce Nantua and other shellfish sauces off the heat, whisked in at the end. A tablespoon or two is enough to color and scent a sauce for four.
Shellfish butters belong to the classical French repertoire that ran the great American hotel kitchens at the turn of the century, and their logic is thrift: the shells and small claws carry most of the aroma and all of the color, and butter is the solvent that pulls both out. Escoffier codified beurre d'écrevisses alongside the crayfish garnishes and sauce Nantua that made the écrevisse a fixture of luxury menus. The two methods given are simply the shell-only version and the version that picks the tail meat, dries the shells, and pounds them all together.