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Beurre Fondu

Beurre fondue is clarified butter made by simmering butter with cloves, bay leaves, onions, and salt, then filtering.

From an old cookbook · modernised transcription
From a historical cookbook (Internet Archive) · 6 ingredients
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Why it works: Clove and onion are a kitchen classic. They rank in the top 13% of all ingredient pairs, and cooks put them together in 16,901 recipes. Both carry 2-nonanone, which smells fruity, floral. The science ↓

Beurre Fondu

Ingredients

Directions

The book gives no cooking times; the times in the steps were added in transcription, so check for doneness rather than trusting the clock.

Make the clarified butter

  1. Place the butter in a copper pot with the cloves, bay leaves, and onions.

  2. Cook over low heat or in a double boiler without skimming for about 3 hours until the butter is clear.

  3. Remove from heat and let it rest for 1 hour.

  4. Skim off any remaining foam and filter the butter through a fine cloth or sieve.

Store and preserve

  1. Pour the butter into ceramic pots and seal tightly to minimize air contact.

  2. Only cover the pots once the butter is completely solidified.

  3. To preserve the butter, dissolve a handful of salt in ½ cup of water, strain it, and pour it over the cooled butter to cover it by at least ½ cm.

Recipe from a historical cookbook (Internet Archive).

Transcribed from a scanned cookbook and modernised for today's kitchens. Where the book gave no heat or time, or said "a moderate oven", the temperatures and times here may be modern equivalents rather than the book's own figures.

Explore the science

The flavor team

The pairs that carry this dish. Each one is judged two ways: how much their aromas overlap, and how often cooks already put them together.

  1. Clove + oniontop 13% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together16,901 recipes

    Shared aroma: 2-nonanone (fruity, floral).

  2. Butter + oniontop 15% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together42,912 recipes

    Shared aroma: decanal (soap, orange peel).

  3. Butter + clovetop 23% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together14,045 recipes

    Shared aroma: ethyl octanoate (fruity, wine).

Ranks compare each pair with 20,000 random ingredient pairs on CompKitchen. How we score pairs

What each ingredient does

Unsalted butter
Its milk solids and water are removed here, leaving pure butterfat that stays clear and keeps well.
Onions
Flavour aromatics that infuse the butter during the long, slow cook.
Bay leaves
Add a subtle aroma to the butter as it cooks slowly.
Whole cloves
Add a warm, spiced aroma to the butter as it cooks slowly.

The step that matters

Cooking without skimming, then resting and filtering. Butter is mostly fat, water and milk solids. Long, gentle heat drives off water and lets solids settle, so the butter must rest before skimming and filtering. Rushing or stirring up the sediment leaves cloudy, less stable butter.

Swap the clove

How well each one fits the dish's main ingredients (butter, onion):

  1. Garlicfits better
  2. Capersfits better
  3. Thymefits better
  4. Clovethe original

Fit is the average pairing score against butter, onion. Candidates are from the same food group and used in at least 100 recipes.

“What each ingredient does” and “The step that matters” were written by Claude from this recipe’s own method and reviewed in samples by CompKitchen.

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