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Comment by zaarn | Hacker News Reader

I've found a good way to handle the smoke point is to heat butter and mix it with a cooking oil with a higher smoke point; in my experience this raises the smoke point of the butter a lot without giving up the taste.

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I was amazed to see that the smoke point of butter — 302°F — increases to 482° when clarified. How to make clarified butter: https://www.seriouseats.com/2015/08/how-to-clarify-butter.ht...

You can also just buy ghee at the grocery store. (Although I might try clarifying it myself since ghee is probably 5 times as expensive.)

Butter is an interesting product because it's made from churning the cream. When you initially get the butter solidifying, it has a lot of whey trapped in it. When you make ghee, you are getting only the fat from the butter -- so you have none of the water and none of the whey proteins. This means that your yield of ghee is often much lower weight than the original butter. You can actually buy butter with almost no water left in it -- but it's also about 5 times the price ;-). I have some cultured butter that I use sometimes and it's actually a bit frustrating because it doesn't foam like cheap butter will -- because there is no water left in the butter. Anyway, while you will probably same some money making your own ghee, you'll probably be surprised at how low the yield will be if you don't start with super expensive butter to begin with.

For foaming, and to check the temperature, just flick in a little water.

You should be able to get a decent idea of expected output and fat percentage by looking at the nutrition label and doing a bit of math. US butter is typically 80% fat, European ones may be 82-84% but if sold in the US might also just be using the brand name and US percentages.

A nice primer: https://www.tastecooking.com/all-about-butter/

Regarding the "always unsalted" advice in there, I've seen discussion from high level cooks in the past few years of "just get salted; it keeps better and when we actually tested recipes it made no difference."

You gotta be careful making ghee. If you don't heat it enough, you don't get ghee with maximum smoke point. And it's also rather bland. The sediment should be at least light brown, for a nutty taste. But too dark, and you've burned it.

I make ghee myself, very easy and tastes far superior to shop bought ghee, also smells much better - fresh and nutty. Just gently boil butter on a low heat for about 25 minutes then strain through cheese cloth. Is the best oil for frying steaks, since it withstands incredible heat, also much healthier than many vegetable oils,which become literally poisonous with high heat (coconut, olive, groundnut oils are OK though)

Not true. https://www.seriouseats.com/2014/09/does-mixing-oil-and-butt...

Thank you for posting this!

The "butter plus oil has a higher smoke point" theory is like building a house that's half tungsten and half wood and claiming it can't catch fire.

Maybe if you had the wood half be encased in a tungsten shell?

Well, my experience is different.

"Nuh uh!" isn't evidence.

If I'm doing steak with butter I start with avocado oil for a maximum temp initial sear, turn the heat off, and then add butter garlic and aromatics. With enough butter (always a good thing) the pan is cooled enough by the melting butter that the butter doesn't burn.

Adding butter at the start, regardless of other oils, still imparts acrid flavours.

I find it’s best to cook with the high smoke point oil, then finish with butter in the warm pan

Or just use Avocado oil which actually has a high smoke point and imparts a mild buttery flavor on what you’re searing. Science also disagrees with your anecdote: https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=20910748

Source: I cook a lot of stuff via Sous Vide and love some of that fancy Mailard Reaction via a proper high smoke point oil and a cast iron skillet.

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