Brown Butter Sauce tips: West End Bistro?

This recipe was in the NYT yesterday and reminded me of the meal I had last week at Eric Ripert’s West End Bistro near DuPont Circle in DC. In the NYT, Kevin Zraly recommended an Olivier Leflaive Puligny-Montrachet with this dish.

My meal started with East and West Coast oysters and a nice Pascal Jolivet Sancerre, followed by a dish they called Molten Goat Cheese Salad which included roasted beets, tarragon vinaigrette, spiced pecans and country ham. For an entrée, I had skate with brown butter, capers and lemon with which, coincidentally, I enjoyed an Olivier Leflaive Puligny-Montrachet. Dessert was cornbread madeleines with blueberry compote and sweet corn sorbet. Excellent all around.

I think I will make the scallop version at home. Seems so simple, but I have never made this sauce. Please share any tips you have on making the brown butter sauce. Thanks.

Sea Scallops with Brown Butter, Capers and Lemon
Feed Me: In a Season of Memory, a Toast to What Endures (September 30, 2009)
Sea salt and freshly ground black pepper
1/4 cup olive oil
3 tablespoons unsalted butter
1 tablespoon finely chopped shallot
2 tablespoons salt-packed capers, rinsed of excess salt
Juice of half a lemon
1/3 cup (packed) flat-leaf parsley leaves, finely chopped.
1. Pat scallops dry with paper towels, and season lightly with salt and pepper. Heat a large sauté pan or nonreactive skillet over medium-high heat, and add oil. After 30 seconds, add scallops; do not crowd pan, work in batches if necessary. Sauté until well browned, about 2 minutes, then turn and cook other side. When second side is dark golden, transfer scallops to a platter; cover and keep warm.
2. Return sauté pan to heat, add butter, and cook until it begins to foam and turn golden. Add shallot and capers, sauté for 1 minute, then add lemon juice (being careful to avoid sputtering butter) and chopped parsley.
3. To serve, place 3 scallops on each of 4 warmed plates. Spoon butter, shallots and capers over scallops, and serve.
Yield: 4 appetizer servings.

I make something almost identical but use Champagne in place of the lemon juice. A dry, unoaked white also works well. There is nothing wrong with the lemon juice, but the wine adds not only the acidity needed but also a more complex flavor.

Glad to hear you enjoyed your dinner.

You might consider making the brown butter in a batch ahead of time and just add it when called for.

Walt

Thanks for the suggestions. Let me ask this a little differently. The brown butter sauce that I had at the West End Bistro was more of an emulsification. I am not sure how this was done, but I did find a recipe for a brown butter emulsification below. Does anyone have experience with using brown butter to make an emulsification? How do you do it? In this case, I would use lemon juice (or as suggested by Dave, wine) to substitute for the vinegars.

For the sauce, place the 6 tablespoons of butter in a pan and heat over medium-high heat, whisking occasionally until golden brown and aromatic. Remove the butter from heat and pour the brown butter into a small food processor; add the white balsamic and sherry vinegar. Season with salt and pepper and drizzle in the extra-virgin olive oil in a steady stream until fully incorporated.

This doesn't seem that much different from an oil-and-vinegar dressing except that you're using brown butter instead of EVOO as the oil. An emulsion of this sort will separate over time. You need to shake/beat/process it just before serving.

-Paul W.

Thanks for the suggestions. Let me ask this a little differently. The brown butter sauce that I had at the West End Bistro was more of an emulsification. I am not sure how this was done, but I did find a recipe for a brown butter emulsification below. Does anyone have experience with using brown butter to make an emulsification? How do you do it? In this case, I would use lemon juice (or as suggested by Dave, wine) to substitute for the vinegars.

For the sauce, place the 6 tablespoons of butter in a pan and heat over medium-high heat, whisking occasionally until golden brown and aromatic. Remove the butter from heat and pour the brown butter into a small food processor; add the white balsamic and sherry vinegar. Season with salt and pepper and drizzle in the extra-virgin olive oil in a steady stream until fully incorporated.

It's like beurre blanc, which is an extremely unstable "emulsion". It's very tricky to get this "thickening" when bringing butter up to that temperature. The best way to so this would have two pans - one in which you cook the dish (clarified butter would be best here for the initial sauteing) and slowly add whole butter along with an acid. Make the brown butter in a separate pan and slowly add it to the first pan.

Thanks, Chef.