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You might find it funny that I would classify butter as a tool of the trade, but that is exactly how I see it.  I have to preface this by saying I am not a butter eater for butter eating sake, I do not slather butter on anything and everything.  I use butter just like I said, it’s a flavor tool.  Over the years I have stuck pretty close to unsalted butter, but have often wondered what was the difference between butter and clarified butter.  So here it is an upclose look at butter and all the variations of it.

So first things first - why salted and unsalted?  Salt is used as a perservative in butter, it gives it a longer shelf life.  Most people have the salted variety at home.  Since I don’t use butter as I spread, I only have unsalted on hand.  The question here is why does it matter?  Chefs want to be able to control the tiniest flavor in their recipes and use unsalted butter to control the amount of salt in recipes. 

So what is the difference between regular butter and organic butter?  The milk used to make organic butter is organic.  Organic foods are free of antibotics, growth horomones, and pesticides.  What is whipped butter?  Whipped butter is normal butter pumped up.  If has a fluffy texture derived from the introduction of air or nitrogen gas to normal butter.  So is light butter really light?  Light butter is just what it says.  It is made from combining “normal butter” with skim milk.  This butter is not good for baking, but great for eating with a lower fat content.  That’s a look in the dairy case, now let’s look at some butters used for cooking.

Two types of butter you may have heard of are clarified butter and ghee.  Clarified butter does not contain water or milk solids.  You can use this butter up to 400°, normal butter can only go up to 250° before it burns on you.  Clarified butter is great for sautee meats, but not so great on toast.  Ghee is like clarified butter, but it has been browned before the solids are removed.  It is used a lot in Indian foods.  You can make clarified butter and ghee at home.  To do so -simply melt regular butter on medium-low heat, skim the solids from the top, and slowly pour out of pan to leave remaining solids behind.