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To Clarify Butter

A method for clarifying butter by removing milk solids and impurities.

From an old cookbook · modernised transcription
From a historical cookbook (Internet Archive) · 2 ingredients
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Why it works: Butter and onion are a kitchen classic. They rank in the top 15% of all ingredient pairs, and cooks put them together in 42,912 recipes. Both carry decanal, which smells soap, orange peel. The science ↓

To Clarify Butter

Ingredients

Directions

Make the clarified butter

  1. Place the butter in a saucepan over low heat.

  2. Once melted, skim off the froth and milk solids from the top.

  3. Let it sit for a couple of minutes to allow sediment to settle.

  4. Pour the clear butter through a sieve into a bowl.

Make it by the German method

  1. For the German method, add the onion to the butter and watch it carefully.

  2. Skim the butter as it begins to boil.

  3. Reduce the heat to simmer for 5 minutes.

  4. Remove the onion.

  5. Let the butter stand until impurities settle at the bottom.

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

    Shared aroma: decanal (soap, orange peel).

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

What each ingredient does

Butter
Its milk solids and water are removed, leaving pure butterfat that is clear and stable at high heat.
Onion
Optional aromatic in the German method; it adds flavour as the butter cooks.

The step that matters

Skimming the froth and milk solids. Milk solids brown and burn if left in the butter during heating, and water in the butter causes spattering. Removing them as they rise gives a clear, golden fat that keeps longer and cooks more cleanly.

“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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