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To Clarify Butter

This recipe clarifies butter by melting and removing milk solids.

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. Skim off the froth and milk solids as it melts.

  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.

Optional German method

  1. For the German method, add the onion and simmer for five minutes before removing it.

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 water and milk solids are separated out, leaving pure butterfat that is clear and stable.

The step that matters

Skimming the froth and milk solids. Butter is water, butterfat and milk solids. Removing the milk solids and water leaves clear fat that resists burning at higher temperatures and keeps longer. Skimming carefully as it melts keeps the result clean.

“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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