Took me 3 years to figure out why my beurre blanc kept splitting on busy Friday nights

Turns out I was overheating the shallot butter base before adding the wine, and I only finally caught it when I watched a slow motion video one of my line cooks took during service.

3 comments

3 Comments

the_diana27d ago

That 'overheating the shallot butter base' part - I'd push back on that a little. The issue isn't the heat level itself, it's that you're not controlling the emulsion's water content. Beurre blanc needs the butter to stay cold and you need to add it in small pieces while the liquid is just below a simmer. If the base gets too hot, the butter melts too fast and the fat separates out before it can emulsify. Try keeping a small bowl of ice water nearby to dip the pan off the heat if you need to slow it down.

ray_miller8427d ago

Wait, have you ever had a friend who just refuses to believe they're doing something wrong in the kitchen? lol. My buddy Chris spent like two years trying to master beurre blanc and he was convinced it was a heat issue. He'd be out there with a thermometer, checking the pan every ten seconds, blaming the stove. Then his girlfriend watched him one day and was like, "dude, have you tried not dumping a whole stick of cold butter in at once?" He was adding big slabs instead of tiny cubes and then wondering why it broke. So yeah, @the_diana is spot on about the water content and the cold butter trick - that's exactly what fixed his problem. He still keeps a bowl of ice water nearby now, just in case the pan gets too happy. That little hack saved him from like seven more failed attempts honestly lmao.

mila_murphy2127d ago

Oh man, that sounds exactly like something that would happen in my friend group too haha. We've all been there where we're so sure we know what the problem is and it turns out it's something totally obvious we've been overlooking. I'm glad his girlfriend caught it before he spent another two years blaming the stove, that's a rough way to learn.