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RECIPE

Recipe: Beat the French butter shortage by making your own

As shops across France are finding it more and more difficult to keeps their shelves stocked with butter, why not take the matter into your own hands and make your own? Here's the recipe.

Published: 30 October 2017 12:24 CET
Recipe: Beat the French butter shortage by making your own
Photo: Will Keightley/Flickr
The consequences of France running out of butter could be pretty catastrophic. 
 
And while we aren't there quite yet, with French newspaper Le Figaro describing the shortage as “the worst since the Second World War” and supermarket shelves looking increasingly empty, it might be time to start taking matters into your own hands.
 
Luckily, it's really simple. Here's how:
 
1. Ingredients
 
To make unsalted butter, the only ingredient you need is whole cream (40 percent fat).
 
If you're making slightly salted butter, you'll also need salt crystals. 
 
READ ALSO:

Oh la vache: France suffers from shortage of butter

Photo: AFP

2. Recipe
 
Beat the cream using an electric mixer. 
 
At first it will look like whipped cream but if you keep beating eventually it will reach the consistency of butter. 
 
This should take less than ten minutes. 
 
If you're using salt, add the crystals as you are whipping. 
 
Remove the butter and put it in a sieve, pushing it down with a spatula to ensure any excess milk is removed. 
 
Store the butter in a tub. 
 
Watch the recipe in action below. 
 

 
3. Tips
 
Use a stainless steel salad bowl that has been cooled in the freezer for the best results. 
 
Et voila! Once you've got the hang of it, you could even spread it on a tartine and sell it online like some other entrepreneurial spirits have started doing.
 
If you have your own recipes for making butter, please share them in the comments section below or on our Facebook page.
 
 

FEATURE

Italian recipe of the week: The perfect spaghetti carbonara

It has just three ingredients, but a lot of bite: artisan pasta maker Silvana Lanzetta shares her recipe for the perfect carbonara sauce.

Published: 19 February 2021 11:08 CET
Italian recipe of the week: The perfect spaghetti carbonara
An authentic carbonara sauce has only three ingredients. Photo: Flickr/Wine Dharma

Pasta alla carbonara (literally translated as 'coal workers’ pasta') is one of the most well-known and loved Italian delicacies: the creaminess of the eggs contrasting with the crispy guanciale makes it a pleasure to eat.

The origins of carbonara sauce are still uncertain. However, the recipe doesn’t appear until 1944, which prompts some speculations on how this delicious recipe came to be.

READ ALSO: The original recipe for authentic bolognese sauce

The most widely recognized theory is that this beloved Italian dish is an American adaptation of the traditional cacio e ova: when the Allied troops were stationed in Italy toward the end of World War Two, they got fond of pasta cacio e pepe, but to give them a “back home” flavour, they added smoked bacon to the recipe.

Roman people enthusiastically adopted the new dish, and quickly added it to their cooking.

They swapped the bacon for guanciale (the fat from a pig’s cheek) as they already had pasta recipes using guanciale and Pecorino cheese, the other two being pasta alla gricia and bucatini all’amatriciana.

Tips

Don't use Parmesan cheese for this recipe. However, if you're having difficulties finding guanciale, pancetta can be used instead.

Never add cream to the recipe: the creaminess is given by the sheer amount of grated Pecorino – so don't skimp on it! 

READ ALSO: Silvana's ten golden rules for cooking pasta like the Italians

Ingredients

  • 360 g spaghetti
  • 120 g guanciale
  • 4 eggs yolks
  • 1 whole egg
  • 150 g Pecorino Romano cheese
  • salt and pepper to taste

Method

Step 1:
In a non-stick pan, fry the guanciale in its own fat until slightly crispy, taking care not to brown it too much.

Step 2:
In a large bowl, beat the egg yolks and the whole egg with salt and pepper. Stir in the grated cheese until a thick cream is obtained. Add the cooked guanciale and reserve.

Step 3:
Cook the spaghetti al dente. Reserve about 100 ml of the cooking water. Drain the pasta well, and immediately pour the pasta into the bowl with the eggs. The heat of the pasta will cook the egg.

Step 4:
Add a little bit of the reserved cooking water, and mix well so as to coat all the pasta. If the sauce is still too dense, add some more cooking water. If too runny, stir in more cheese.

Step 5:
If necessary, season with more salt and pepper. Serve immediately sprinkled with extra grated Pecorino cheese.


Silvana Lanzetta. Photo: Private

Silvana Lanzetta was born into a family of pasta makers from Naples and spent 17 years as a part-time apprentice in her grandmother’s pasta factory. She specializes in making pasta entirely by hand and runs regular classes and workshops in London.

Find out more at her website, Pastartist.com, including this recipe and others.

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