If there is one thing that all cooks agree on, it's that there are no substitutes for the unmistakable flavor and quality of butter. Our butter experts have put together a "butter-basics" guide to help make everything you cook with butter a four-star celebration. Follow this practical advice and soon you too will be cooking like the pros! * Use unsalted butter for seafood and baking because of its delicate flavor. * For maximum flavor, heat butter before using. Heating releases natural flavor compounds, allowing butter to develop its full, rich taste. Drizzle over vegetables, pasta, grains, potatoes or broiled fish and poultry. * Butter is a great way to enhance any sauce. For the simplest of sauces, add white wine to pan juices after sauteing chicken; cook and stir over high heat until slightly thickened. Remove from heat and stir in a tablespoon of butter for a rich buttery taste and glossy appearance. * Browned butter makes a delicious topping for chicken, fish and vegetables. Gently heat 1/2 cup of butter until it becomes golden and gives off a nutty aroma. Remove from heat at once. If desired, stir in 1 to 3 tablespoons of lemon juice and 2 tablespoons chopped parsley. * To give vegetables a burst of buttery flavor, "steam saute" them. Simply melt a pat of butter in a non-stick skilled; add vegetables cut in bite-size pieces and a small amount of broth, wine or juice. Cover and steam for a few short minutes until barely tender, stirring occasionally. * Baking with butter ensures your recipe will stay fresh and moist longer. * For flaky pastries, use ice cold butter. During baking, the butter pieces trapped in the dough melt, creating air pockets for the flakiest of doughs. * To evenly distribute spices and flavorings in a batter, cream them with the softened butter. * If butter cakes are refrigerated or frozen, bring to room temperature before serving for the best texture and flavor (cakes made with whipped cream and other perishable fillings and frostings should be thawed in the refrigerator and served cold.) * The finest ingredients produce the finest desserts. For superior desserts, start with real dairy butter, the freshest fruits available, the best quality chocolate and pure flavorings. * Use stick butter when preparing recipes. Measurements will not be equal if whipped butter is used because of its moisture and air content. * Use whipped butters for toppings and spreads. ======================================================================== Tips from: * Mary Bergin * Jeff Blank * Ann Cooper Tips from Mary Bergin, Executive Pastry Chef for Spago, Las Vegas, NV... 1.Always heat the pan before adding butter. It is especially important to use a "heavy bottomed" pan, so that the heat can accumulate before adding butter. 2.When melting butter, a thin pan will actually burn the solids of the butter before actually melting it, giving it a bitter taste, as opposed to a sweet, savory taste. 3.I often use butter to thicken a sauce or custard. I prefer butter to other thickening agents such as cornstarch or gelatin because of butter's wonderful flavor. The rich flavor from butter is much more satisfying than powdered additives. 4.Very often, adding butter to a warm or hot mixture will cause it to separate. Therefore, it is very important not to over beat the mixture. In other words, combine the mixture gently by folding with a rubber spatula, as opposed to whisking with a whisk or machine. 5.When "creaming" butter with any ingredient, i.e., sugar, brown sugar, etc. I recommend using cold butter, cut up into small pieces. This way, you can "smooth out" the butter with the other ingredients before the butter begins to separate. 6.When I make puff pastries -- and I make 18 kilos every week -- I use butter that has the highest fat content and the least amount of water. This way, I am sure that very little water goes into my product and maximum flavor comes out during baking. Tips from Jeff Blank, Chef/Owner of Hudson's On The Bend... 1.It is best to use "AA" butter when baking your favorite recipes. It guarantees a rich and wholesome flavor. 2.Whenever possible, use unsalted butter for all of your cooking needs. This allows you to adjust the salt level at the end of the cooking process. Also, salted butted may cause baked items to stick to your cooking pans. 3.Unsalted butter should not be stored longer than two weeks in a refrigerator, but it can be frozen for up to six months. When storing butter in the refrigerator or freezer, make sure it is well wrapped. Like all butter products, it will absorb all the different flavors in your refrigerator and freezer. If it is left unwrapped next to fish, it will taste like fish! 4.Use your butter wrapper to grease your pan. 5.If you have burned or over-browned your butter while clarifying or cooking, it is best to throw it away and start over. Heavily browned butter will affect the flavor of the other ingredients in your recipe. 6.When making flavored butters, do not allow butter to become too warm before blending as the fat will separate. Allow the butter to stay cool until you are ready to blend with other ingredients. 7.When finishing a sauce, one to two teaspoons of chilled butter, whipped into the sauce, will give the sauce a glossy shine and enhance its color. 8.It is always best to saut‚ with clarified butter whenever possible, and the good news is clarifying butter is an easy process! Simply melt butter over medium low heat until all butter solids have melted and have simmered for 20 minutes. Refrigerate until butter becomes solid again. Lift clarified butter solids from water and solids in the bottom of the pan. You can also skim the butter off the top if you can't wait for the refrigeration process to separate the butter solids. The result is a butter that sautes cleaner and quicker, allowing for even browning without over cooking. Tips from Ann Cooper, Executive Chef for Putney Inn, Putney, VT... 1.Have fun with butter! Be creative with butter! Here are a few suggestions for making fabulous shapes with butter: * Balls - Use a Melon Baller * Curls - Use a Butter Curler or Vegetable Peeler * Piped - Soft butters can be placed in a pastry bag with a star tip and piped into * rosettes (If you don't have a pastry bag, just use a strong plastic baggy by cutting the end of one tip to make your own!) * Molded - Soft butters can be put in small candy molds to form festive shapes * Rolled - Soft butters can be placed on wax paper and rolled into logs, refrigerated and then sliced into circles 2.Be versatile. To make whipped butter: * In a mixer, whip 1 pound of unsalted butter until soft and light colored, slowly add up to 6 ounces of half & half and continue whipping until light and airy * Flavorings and seasoning can be added i.e., roasted garlic and scallions for a creamy butter to serve with toasted bagels * Try flavored whipped butter, such as Dijon Mustard Butter, as a spread on sandwiches 3.Baking Tips * Top the fruit in a pie with an ounce of butter prior to affixing the top pie crust to keep the filling from boiling out * In cake batters, softened butter will make creaming easier * When making puff pastry the "colder the better" is the butter rule 4.Butter in sauces - When finishing a sauce with butter always remove the sauce from the direct heat and slowly mix in small pieces of cold butter. Well-chilled butter will better emulsify a sauce. 5.Butter should be stored in tightly sealed containers and away from highly aromatic items. Butter takes on the flavors of other items so, for pure flavors, store properly. ======================================================================== Cookware tips from: * Mary Bergin * Jeff Blank * Ann Cooper Recommended cookware from the kitchen of Mary Bergin: I like the heavy-duty professional quality cookware of brands, such as All-Clad. One unique aspect of this type of cookware is that you're supposed to heat the pan without anything in it and then add butter or oil. This way, if you overheat the pan, you have not burned the butter or oil. Just let the pan cool off and start over again. Cookware tips from "Real Butter Team" member Jeff Blank... Cookware for the commercial kitchen always seems to be different than what you find in homes - with good reason! When you see pots and pans slammed around on a busy restaurant Saturday night, you realize that you would not want that done to your good home cookware. At home, I recommend using stainless steel lined pots and pans, such as the LTD line. Stainless never discolors or pits as the aluminum pots can and will do. For baking ware the French still have the best - tin-lined steel. It's hundreds of years old but still guarantees the most even cooking (provided it is a heavy, good quality steel to begin with.) German lines, like Kaiser, are also quite good. For use in the home, they will last forever. Tips from Ann Cooper, Executive Chef for Putney Inn, Putney, VT... I recommend the following cookware for use with butter: * Medium to heavy weight pots and pans to reduce the chance of burning * Electric Mixer * Ladles for skimming clarified butter * Pastry bags and star tips for piping butter * Plastic spatulas * Melon Ballers * Butter Curlers or Vegetable Peeler * Plastic airtight containers ======================================================================== Executive Pastry chef Spago -- Las Vegas, Nevada Mary Bergin launched her career in the pastry kitchen of Spago restaurant in West Hollywood in 1982. And in 1987 she became executive pastry chef. Five years later, Mary moved to Las Vegas to open the new Spago restaurant in the Forum Shops at Caesars Palace on the Las Vegas Strip. Her innovative desserts have been enjoyed and praised by world leaders, Hollywood stars and fellow chefs alike. Mary began her culinary experience by working at a trendy Hollywood eatery as a prep cook during the day and at the popular La Toque restaurant in the evening assisting the pastry chef. During this time she met famous chef Wolfgang Puck. Bergin's desire for change and eagerness to learn led her to a long career of orchestrating and designing desserts for Puck's restaurants. Mary's creativity has garnered her national recognition. In 1989 she was a guest chef on ABC's nationally syndicated "Home Show" where she demonstrated some of her famous Passover desserts from Spago. Since that time, Bergin has appeared on several different episodes preparing her delectable creations or working as a team with her culinary partner Wolfgang Puck. Her recipes and desserts have been featured several times via media outlets such as Bon Appetit, ABC's Good Morning America, the Mike and Matty show, AM Los Angeles, Cooks Magazine, the Los Angeles Times, The New York Times, the Daily News and Chef Magazine. Her desserts have accompanied many of the country's most prestigious dinners, including Chateau Lafite Rothschild, Caine de Rotisseurs, Wolfgang Puck's Charitable Foundation's "The American Wine & Food Festival" and for the American Institute of Wine and Food. She has also designed glitzy desserts for annual Oscar Night parties at Spago which has further enhanced Mary's sweet reputation for award-winning desserts. Mary has consulted on and contributed to various cookbooks, including Puck's latest, "Adventures in the Kitchen." She recently released her own cookbook, "Spago Desserts," written with her long-time friend Judy Gethers and published by Random House. Also, in July of 1995, Mary participated as a guest chef on "Baking at Julia's." She is currently working on her next book, "Spago Chocolate Desserts," scheduled for release in 1996. Mary has two children, Jacqueline and Anthony. Since she is a full-time pastry chef and a single mother, Mary allows her children to play an active role in the kitchen, tasting her experimental desserts and sometimes even creating their own. ========================================================================= Chef/Owner Hudson's On The Bend -- Austin, Texas Jeff Blank's creativity and originality in the kitchen has made him one of the most talked about chefs in the country. Blank, owner of Hudson's on the Bend Restaurant in Austin, Texas, for the last 10 years, has been praised by The New York Times and publications including Texas Monthly, Men's Journal, Field and Stream, M Magazine, Gourmet, Domain, Cooking Light, Spirit, Bon Appetit and Chef's Magazine. In addition, he has received a number of honors and awards, including the Conde Nast Traveler Magazine Distinguished Restaurant Award for Hudson's and celebrity chef for the 1993 Texas Food and Wine Festival, Wine Spectator Magazine's "One of the 1994 Award of Excellence Winners," Celebrity Chef for the 1995 San Angelo Food and Wine Festival. Hudson's on the Bend Restaurant, known as the most romantic restaurant in Austin, was named one of the "Top 50 Restaurants in America" by the prestigious Conde Nast Traveler Magazine. Blank has dubbed the food at Hudson's "Texas Hill County Cuisine." Blank, who received his culinary education at the Hotel and Restaurant School at Oklahoma State University, has become famous for using many varieties of game. At Hudson's, venison, quail, pheasant, duck, as well as rabbit, wild boar, ostrich and rattlesnake are smoked in the rock smokehouse or grilled over pecan wood. The award-winning kitchen is noted for its innovative sauces used to accent the food. These innovations include fresh-fruit game sauces and novelle Southwestern sauces, like Tomatillo White Chocolate Sauce atop Grilled Swordfish or a Mango Jalapeno Aeoli with a hot and crunchy trout. He also uses new infusion techniques to create unique recipes, such as "cold- smoked" butter. In 1992 Blank, previous owner and operator The Wineskin Restaurant in Snowmass, Colorado, began marketing a line of sauces under the name of Hudson's on the Bend Gourmet Sauces. All of the sauces were developed at the restaurant and designed to be used as finishing sauces for meats, poultry and fish. The top quality sauces are produced at the restaurant by Blank. Food lovers can find the sauces in many gourmet food stores throughout Texas and across the country. Cooking classes are offered the third Sunday of every month at Hudson's and have proven to be the challenge that keeps the menu fresh and exciting. In the past, students have learned to prepare Pheasants Nogales with Walnut Sauce (Hudson's version of the traditional Mexican dish served in celebration of the Mexican Revolution...Chilies Nogales). ======================================================================== Executive Chef The Putney Inn -- Putney, Vermont Ann Cooper has been named 1995's Chef of the Year by the American Culinary Federation (ACF) of Central Vermont, of which she is also president. Chef Cooper, a graduate of New York's famous Culinary Institute of America, was one of the first fifty women to be certified as an executive chef by the educational arm of the ACF. She has served in that capacity at the Putney Inn in Putney, Vermont since 1990. Cooper's career has taken her from positions with Holland America Cruises to the Telluride Ski Resort where she catered parties of up to 10,000 people. She's been featured in Gourmet, Food Arts, Restaurants & Institutions, Indian Harvest Newsletter, National Culinary Review, and the National Dairy Council Newsletter Cooper has made guest chef appearances at Sakonnet Vineyards and The Publick House. She works as a consultant to the Hawthorne Hotel in Salem, Massachusetts and the Vermont Butter & Cheese Company and has been a presenter at both the National Restaurant Association and Fancy Food shows in New York. Also a free-lance writer and reviewer, she's currently at work on a book about women chefs. Since the early 1980's, Cooper has served as the executive chef at the prestigious Telluride Film Festival in Telluride, Colorado. In 1995 her festival staff featured winners of the Chef Ann Cooper Academy Scholars Award recently established by the IUP Academy of Culinary Arts in Pennsylvania. A consultant for online services such as ChefNet and Compuserve Cooks Online Forum, Cooper has also brought her expertise to the new Microsoft Network's Encyclopedia Cuisines forum. The forum is a select team of culinary specialists known as Premier Chefs. "Chef Ann" (as she is known on the forum) features recipes that are characterized by the use of fresh regional ingredients such as farm-raised fruits and produce, locally raised fish and poultry and wild game. This emphasis on freshness has become her hallmark. Throughout her career, Cooper has maintained an impressive record of achievement. Recent awards include: Northeast Regional Winner, ACF/Whirl Competition, a first place and a silver medal in the ACF/National Dairy Council Competition and a gold medal in the ACF/Custom Gold Competition. She also was honored with the Custom Gold Award for Culinary Excellence. Her numerous accomplishments include Northeast Regional winner in the Uncle Ben's Rice Cookoff, Grand Prize winner in the Hershey's Chocolate Desserts Contest and recipient of the General Foods Nutrition Scholarship. ========================================================================= Brasserie-T -- Northfield, Illinois Gale Gand is doing it again. After the overwhelming success of Chicago's four-star Trio restaurant, Gand and her husband Rick Tramonto have opened Brasserie-T in Northfield, Illinois, to similar critical praise. Gand, who recently showcased her talents on CBS This Morning, has consistently received stellar reviews for her remarkable desserts. Pat Bruno, restaurant critic for the Chicago Sun-Times, has declared Gand, "one of the best pastry chefs in the United States," and Phil Vettel, the Chicago Tribune restaurant critic, called her desserts, "sensational, sinful and oh-so-satisfying." Even Esquire's John Mariani praised Gand's masterful work, proclaiming, "every dessert I tried was poetic. They should be: They are made by the city's best pastry chef, Gale Gand... Her creme brulee is perfect, her chocolate polenta scrumptious, and her chocolate pudding out of this world." Gand always has been an artist and spent her college years studying silver and goldsmithing. When she took a year off and went to work in a restaurant, she discovered that her art skills translated well to cuisine. So, she decided to start her own catering company. She also worked for three years at the Strathallen Hotel in Rochester, New York, where she met Tramonto. In 1984 Gand and Tramonto moved to New York where Gand worked at Jam's for a year, before following Tramonto to Gotham Bar & Grill. While at Gotham, Gand's desserts were awarded three stars by The New York Times food critic Bryan Miller. They returned to Chicago in 1987 and Gand became a pastry chef at the Pump Room. She also opened a number of restaurants, including Hotel 21, Bice and Bella Luna. Food & Wine magazine listed her among "People To Watch For 1990." Gand and Tramonto even found success abroad. While Gand was a pastry chef at Bice, she and Tramonto accepted an offer to transform the kitchen and cuisine at Stapleford Park Hotel in England. Despite skepticism from critics and the public, Gand and Tramonto managed to receive acclaim from some of London's toughest reviewers. For example, Fay Maschler of the London Evening Standard called Gand's "ice creams...the best in Great Britain." Gand's expertise in the kitchen has been awarded on several occasions. In 1994 Gand received the Robert Mondavi Award for Culinary Excellence, and she and Tramonto were named in Food & Wine's Top Ten Best New Chefs for 1994. Also, Food & Wine listed her among the "People To Watch For 1990." ======================================================================== Simon says, "Kids are cooks too!" That's right. When you're ready to "let them loose" in the kitchen here are some tips to make it safe, fun and rewarding for everyone. Kids gain a sense of family history and belonging that comes from making a favorite family recipe. They also become self-sufficient in the kitchen while learning that perfection is not a necessity. A chocolate chip cookie that's not round tastes just as good as a perfectly shaped one. To help parents make baking a learning experience that is enjoyable for everyone, here are some pointers: * Safety first. Instill a healthy respect for sharp knives and hot ranges. Talk about using pot holders, turning sauce pan handles away from the edge of the stove and keeping towels and pot holders away from open flames or hot burners. * Wash hands. Emphasize washing hands before cooking and often during the process, especially after scraping the bowl clean and licking fingers. * Roll up sleeves before beginning. * Tie back hair if it is long. * Start with simple, kid pleasing recipes, like muffins or brownies. * Read the recipe out loud before you begin explaining each step. Older children can assemble all of the ingredients and equipment needed before beginning. * Encourage taking turns when baking with more than one child. Use a kitchen timer and make a game out of sharing time on a task that two children want to do. * Teach correct measuring techniques. Use graduated (nested) measuring cups for measuring dry ingredients, like flour or sugar; clear glass or plastic cups with pouring spouts for milk and other liquids and measuring spoons for small amounts of liquid and dry ingredients. Show children the markings on the butter wrapper that simplify measuring. * Teach taste by using high quality ingredients such as real butter, pure vanilla extract, quality chocolate and fresh spices. If you follow these tips from the experts, your family will be able to enjoy time together as well as create a magnificent masterpiece in the kitchen! ======================================================================== Undoubtedly, one can say that Zet Mazzaro has carved out her niche in the butter business. After little success in the waffle business, Belgium-born Mazzaro found solace and success in forming a company that generates gorgeous, edible butter figurines from tiny fiberglass molds. Ducks, wedding bells, footballs, even Mickey mouse are among the shapely butter morsels in Mazzaro's expansive repertoire. Fact is, the Florida-based Mazzaro's creative instincts and collection of fiberglass molds know no bounds. For an objective perspective, let's ask the chefs at some of the nation's top eateries. "We get a lot of great comments on how unique it is," says one Arizona chef who impresses diners at his posh country club with butter dishes packed with the tiny forms of Cacti. "Butter is a small detail, but it gets noticed and appreciated," says a New York City chef who has given his customers the opportunity to slather their baguettes with miniature statue of liberty figurines. Having made butter her business, Mazzaro has hatched big plans for expansion. She's added flavored butter -- maple, strawberry, garlic -- to her stock of offerings. For more info, contact The Belgium Company, 825 E. Lakeshore Boulevard, Kissimmee, FL 34744, (800) 966-0177, fax (407) 348-0320. ========================================================================= Copyright American Dairy Association (reprinted with permission)