Butter

FRENCHTOWN, N.J. — Elizabeth Gilbert is standing at her stove, stirring flour into melted butter, attempting a simple white sauce for the base of an oyster bisque. As she slowly adds the milk, just as directed in the recipe, the sauce clumps. "I don't know about this, I've never made a white sauce before," she says, stirring furiously to smooth out the lumps. The best-selling author of Eat, Pray, Love is the first to admit her greatest talent is not in the kitchen.

The gentleman at the next able wanted his vegetables steamed. No butter, no margarine, no oil, with or without garlic. The pleasant waitress made two trips to the kitchen to negotiate. Fifteen minutes later, she delivered a loaf-shaped mound of unadorned steamed spinach to the table that would have satisfied Popeye. Did the man know he was dealing with a butterholic in the kitchen at Cafe 2825? Did he have any idea that we would get all the butter he rejected, soaking the broccoli, flooding the scampi, drenching the veal francaise?

Spending a week in a large refrigerator carving 900 pounds of butter into two life-size cows and the late chocolate magnate Milton Hershey is challenge enough. But then Hershey wound up too tall. And he was facing the wrong direction. And the chocolate to coat him was two days late. What now? No sweat for a pro such as veteran butter sculptor Jim Victor. He was still smiling last week as he scrunched himself cowside, putting a few final pats into place on the annual butter sculpture at the Pennsylvania Farm Show, which opened yesterday.

There is no true substitute for butter. Though we have tried for more than a century to develop a product that matches its appearance, its flavor and its culinary potential, nobody has done so. Most margarines taste as much like butter as cherry candy tastes like cherries. Pastry made with butter-flavored shortening is a pale cousin to an all-butter crust, and no low-cholesterol spread in a tub can fill a muffin's nooks and crannies with the same steam of sweet cream as the real thing.

Jeff Johnsen's unlikely "butter" shot toasted Saint Louis. Johnsen's off-balance three-pointer - barely beating the shot clock - with 1:43 left carried Utah to a 48-45 victory over Saint Louis last night in the Midwest Regional at Cleveland State University. "I saw the shot clock at the very last second," Johnsen said. "We yell 'butter!' when it goes inside 10 seconds. I heard 'butter!' and I just let it fly. And I was lucky. " Johnsen's shot from his hip gave the Utes (23-8)

Most cooks can close their eyes and imagine the sounds of butter sizzling in a saute pan. That's a nice recollection. They can also probably recall the bitter smell of that butter scorching when the heat was too high, or when it was left to sizzle unattended. Burning butter is frustrating; the time it takes to clean the pan and start over also can have a domino effect on the timing of your recipe. There's a simple way to address that problem: Use clarified butter. Butter is clarified by being melted slowly.

Most people would place butter high on a list of health-iffy foods. It's calorie-dense and almost 100 percent fat. Plus, there's strong evidence that a diet high in cholesterol and saturated fat - the kind in butter - can clog your arteries and steal years from your life. A high-fat diet also increases the risk of developing cancer. With all that in mind, American consumers have started backing away from butter. Since the mid-1980s butter use has dropped by about 10 percent. Meanwhile, the market for butter substitutes, virtually non-existent 10 years ago, has blossomed to include all sorts of buttery-tasting spreads, sprinkles and sprays.

The virtue of clarified butter is that it can withstand higher cooking temperatures than unclarified butter. That means it will not burn as easily, making it a better medium for sauteing and browning foods. Another plus is that clarified butter keeps longer than regular butter. Though some cooks might miss the buttery flavor that's lost in the clarifying process, an interesting, subtle, nutty flavor takes its place. Clarified butter is made by simply melting butter slowly so that the milk solids sink to the bottom of the pan in the form of a residue.

Dear Polly: Can you tell me how to make whipped butter like the butter they serve in pancake houses? - Carole Whipped butter couldn't be easier! Simply place a stick of softened (room temperature) butter in a deep bowl and whip with an electric mixer until light, fluffy and greater in volume. Scoop into an attractive serving bowl to serve with pancakes or waffles, hot biscuits, fresh bread or anything else that is enhanced by the smooth savor of fresh butter. It may be stored in the refrigerator in a tightly covered bowl.

At the same time that you're buttering your morning toast, you also may be slathering it with the tiny amounts of the flame retardant PBDE. In a study to be published Tuesday in the journal Environmental Health Perspectives, researchers found that each of 10 samples of butter purchased at five Dallas grocery stores contained various types of PBDEs. Although it was a limited sampling and the amounts were small enough to be measured in trillionths of a gram per gram of butter, lead researcher Arnold Schecter said the concentration was the highest found so far in food.

FRENCHTOWN, N.J. — Elizabeth Gilbert is standing at her stove, stirring flour into melted butter, attempting a simple white sauce for the base of an oyster bisque. As she slowly adds the milk, just as directed in the recipe, the sauce clumps. "I don't know about this, I've never made a white sauce before," she says, stirring furiously to smooth out the lumps. The best-selling author of Eat, Pray, Love is the first to admit her greatest talent is not in the kitchen.

2 cups celery stalks, cut crosswise in 1-inch lengths 2 1/2 cups white sauce, as described in the oyster bisque 1/2 cup bread crumbs 1/2 cup grated cheese, such as Gruyere or Parmigiano-Reggiano 4 tablespoons butter Salt   1. Boil the celery in salted water until tender. Drain, and mix with white sauce and grated cheese. 2. Butter a dish with half of the butter. Add the celery/sauce/cheese mixture, cover it with bread crumbs, and dot it with the other half of the butter.

8-ounce tub of oysters, chopped, with juice 1 pint clam juice 2 tablespoons butter 2 tablespoons flour 2 cups milk 1 teaspoon salt 1/8 teaspoon black pepper 1. Add oysters to 1 pint of clam juice and bring to a boil. 2. Make white sauce: In a saucepan, melt the butter over a medium flame and stir in the flour. When it starts to bubble, take the pan from the fire and slowly stir in 1 cup of milk, letting the flour absorb the liquid. Put the pan back over the heat and just as slowly add 1 cup more of milk, never ceasing the stirring.

32 ounces mushroom stock or chicken broth 3 tablespoons olive oil 1 clove fresh garlic, minced 6 ounces fresh shiitake mushrooms, chopped 4 ounces fresh oyster mushrooms, chopped 4 ounces fresh portobello mushrooms, chopped 2 teaspoons fresh thyme leaves, chopped 4 tablespoons unsalted butter 12 ounces arborio rice 6 ounces white wine (preferably dry, such as a Chablis) 2 scallions, chopped 1 sprig Italian parsley, chopped 2 ounces Parmesan cheese, grated Salt and pepper to taste   1. In a saucepan, heat broth or stock to simmer and hold.

For garlic bread crumbs (makes more than needed for recipe): 12-ounce loaf of (sourdough or baguette) day-old bread, sliced. ½ cup garlic oil For mushrooms: 3 cups fresh mixed mushrooms (oysters, maitakes, shiitakes, beech, king oysters) 3 tablespoons olive oil, for roasting mushrooms For macaroni: 5 cups milk ½ large yellow onion, chopped, about 1 cup 2 garlic cloves, smashed with the flat side of a knife, skin left on 4 parsley sprigs 4 fresh oregano or marjoram sprigs 3 fresh thyme sprigs 3 bay leaves 2 tablespoons unsalted butter 2 tablespoons all-purpose flour 1 tablespoon Dijon mustard Salt and pepper 2 tablespoons softened butter (for buttering dish)

3 tablespoons unsalted cold butter, cut into 1-inch cubes, plus additional for the baking sheets 1½ cups (7.5 ounces) all-purpose flour, plus additional for the counter 1 teaspoon dry mustard powder 1 teaspoon salt 1½ cups (6 ounces) grated cheddar cheese 2 teaspoons distilled white vinegar 1 ice cube   1. Combine the butter, flour, dry mustard, and salt in the bowl of a stand mixer. Mix on low speed with the paddle attachment until the mixture is crumbly and the butter starts to integrate into the mixture, about 30 seconds.

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For bubble and squeak: 1 pound Idaho potatoes, peeled 3 ounces butter, plus more for cooking 1 leek, cleaned and thinly sliced 1/2 head green cabbage, thinly sliced 3 ounces heavy cream Vegetable oil Salt and pepper 8 ounces sliced smoked salmon 4 eggs (optional) For dill hollandaise: 6 egg yolks 1 lemon 14 ounces clarified butter 1 sprig fresh dill, chopped   1. Place potatoes in a stockpot and cover with cold water.

4-6 tablespoons melted butter 7 sheets of phyllo 3 green garlic shoots,? (substitute 4 scallions or small? bunch of chives and 2 cloves of? garlic) 8 ounces creamy fresh goat? cheese, at room temperature 1 egg 2-3 tablespoons of olive oil 1 large bunch greens (approx.? 1 pound) such as Swiss chard, ? kale, or spinach, washed and? trimmed Salt and fresh ground black pepper to taste 1. Preheat oven to 375 degrees. Melt the butter in a small saucepan.

Makes 6 to 8 servings 2 pounds strawberries,    stemmed and halved 1/4 cup sugar (or to taste,    depending on the sweet-         ness of the berries) 1/4 teaspoon salt 1 tablespoon melted butter    (optional) 1. Preheat the oven to 275 degrees. Adjust a baking rack to the middle position. 2. In a large mixing bowl, combine the strawberries, sugar, salt and butter (if using)