Butter Holds the Secret to Cookies That Sing

I’ve always believed in the power of butter and ghee (clarified butter). These two ingredients make any dish so much better, and in the case of more than one dish, using these right is the key to actually making the food taste great.

I’ve noticed this more than once when cooking mutton (goat meat, for my foreign readers).

I make a dish that my wife loves, which uses just six ingredients besides the mutton: ghee, chopped onions, whole dried red chillies, curd,  coriander powder and salt. It’s called Jungle Maas (maas = mutton)

The few times when I gave in to listening to her about how bad ghee is, the dish was a disaster. It’s only when I haven’t been shy about the ghee (or the chillies), that the dish has been absolutely fabulous.

In fact, there’s some lying in the fridge that I’m going to go and eat right now.

This is in the New York Times, so hungry just reading this:

The most common mistakes made by home bakers, professionals say, have to do with the care and handling of one ingredient: butter. Creaming butter correctly, keeping butter doughs cold, and starting with fresh, good-tasting butter are vital details that professionals take for granted, and home bakers often miss.

Butter is basically an emulsion of water in fat, with some dairy solids that help hold them together. But food scientists, chefs and dairy professionals stress butter’s unique and sensitive nature the way helicopter parents dote on a gifted child.

“Butter has that razor melting point,” said Shirley O. Corriher, a food scientist and author of the recently published “BakeWise: The Hows and Whys of Successful Baking” (Scribner).

For mixing and creaming, butter should be about 65 degrees: cold to the touch but warm enough to spread. Just three degrees warmer, at 68 degrees, it begins to melt.

“Once butter is melted, it’s gone,” said Jennifer McLagan, author of the new book “Fat: An Appreciation of a Misunderstood Ingredient, With Recipes” (Ten Speed Press).

Go on, read the entire thing!

Recovered from the site’s WordPress archive, where it was published on 2008-12-17.