Buerre Monté: The Workhorse Sauce
Buerre Monté: The Workhorse Sauce
Buerre Monté: The Workhorse Sauce
Buerre Monté: The Workhorse Sauce
Ingredients
- Water
- 4 tablespoons to 1 pound of butter, cut into chunks
Directions
- METHOD:
Beurre Monté can be made in any amount using the same cooking method. Bring the water to a boil in an appropriate size saucepan. Reduce the heat to low and begin whisking the butter into the water, bit by bit, to emulsify. Once you have established the emulsion, you can continue to add pieces of butter until you have the quantity of beurre monté that you need (the French Laundry makes 20 pounds at a time). It is important to keep the level of heat gentle and consistent in order to maintain the emulsification. Make the beurre monté close to the time it will be used and maintain it in a warm place. If you have extra beurre monté, it can be refrigerated and reheated to use as melted butter or it can be clarified.
USE:
At the French Laundry, we use an awful lot of butter without serving a lot of butter because of a method and substance called beurre monté--a way of infusing meats and fish with the flavor of butter. We cook in it, rest meats in it, make sauces with it. Its an extraordinary vehicle for both heat and flavor. Here's what beurre monté is: a few drops of water and chunks of butter whisked over a moderate heat to melt the butter and keep it emulsified, in one piece and creamy. Solid butter is an emulsification of butter fat, water, and milk solids; beurre monté is a way to manipulate the emulsification into liquid form.
Lobster poached in beurre monté is like no other lobster. Its so reminiscent to me of American cuisine. When its done right, this butter poached lobster reminds me of Maine lobster that you eat with drawn butter, and for me thats what lobster is all about. Poaching lobster in beurre monté is the perfect way to cook lobster and its also an easy way to cook lobster. First, it infuses the meat with that buttery flavor, which connects you back to that experience of dipping lobster in clear butter. Second, because beurre monté stays between 180° and 190° in our kitchen, its always at a perfect poaching temperature. When you cook lobster violently, it seizes up, its impossible to get any flavor into it; poaching it in butter, mellows it out. Butter-poached lobster is meltingly tender, moist and flavorful. And because of the gentle temperature, its harder to overcook it. This is great to do at home. Make your beurre monté, bring it to 180°, 190°, pop your cleaned lobster tails and claws in beurre monté, and let them poach for five or six minutes. I would eat them straight out of the butter myself.
This technique works not just with lobster but with just about any firm meaty fish. Monkfish is great this way, for instance, and so is sea bass.
Almost all our canapé sauces are made à la minute with beurre monté. The sauce for the blinis, for oysters and pearls, for bacon and eggs--all are simply a spoonful of beurre monté with different flavoring ingredients.
And finally, what we don't use, we simply clarify the next day and use this clear butter for Hollandaise or for seafood. You can do that or simply refrigerate it and use it the same way you'd use whole butter for cooking.
Buerre Monté: The Workhorse Sauce
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