Cooking with butter is one of our specialties, a good white butter sauce to accompany fish or even butter cream in pastry, another classic! With herbs, butter is very easy to make and goes well with meats. But it is also simply delicious, in its simple device, spread on a slice of bread. If you wait too long, the butter quickly tends to go rancid. Its taste and color change. Here is a great anti-waste tip.
How to use rancid butter?
In contact with air, the butter goes rancid. It has an unpleasant odor, sour taste and straw-yellow color. In short, it is far from appetizing. That doesn’t mean it’s good for the trash, though. Rancid butter remains edible but it is better not to use it for preparations without cooking. Say goodbye to butter bread for breakfast. Prefer it for dishes and desserts that cook at high temperatures. It is ideal for buttering a pie mold for example or using it for cake recipes or in cookie dough. When tasted, rancid butter leaves no unpleasant taste in the mouth.
How to prevent butter from going rancid?
Prefer semi-salted butter, which allows the product to be preserved longer.
Do you know smen? The recipe to preserve your butter!
Smen is a clarified butter recipe, popular in the Maghreb. It is used in small quantities to flavor tajines, couscous or even harira. In French gastronomy, clarified butter is used in cooking to give the taste of butter to dishes, while avoiding overcooking. Clarified butter consists of heating the butter over low heat in a saucepan until the water it contains evaporates. The whey and fat will separate, resulting in 100% pure fat. Smen or clarified butter has a strong taste. In this form, the butter can be kept for several months away from light and does not go rancid.
Instagrammer’s smen recipe mina__sweet__life
Ingredients :
- 500 g traditional butter (at room temperature)
- 2 tbsp. salt
- 2 tbsp. thyme
- 1 large glass of water
Recipe :
- In a saucepan, bring the glass of water to a boil and add the thyme.
- As soon as the water comes to a boil, turn off the heat and let it steep.
- Strain the thyme and leave to cool in the fridge.
- Meanwhile, wash the butter in cold water and rinse it several times until all traces of milk have disappeared.
- Add the salt to the thyme mixture and pour it over the butter.
- Mix well and leave it covered for at least half a day or overnight.
- Drain the butter well and put it in a jar, pressing.
- Sprinkle with a little salt and cover with a paper towel before tightening the lid.
- Wrap the glass jar in a tea towel then leave in a cool, dark place for 1 month. After this rest time, the smen is ready to be used.
Read also :
⋙ Can we eat butter after the expiry date? + 5 tips to keep it longer
⋙ 8 unusual facts about butter
⋙ Here is finally the trick to obtain soft butter in less than a minute