Herb butter

I was looking at the carotene butter video and thought about making the same herbs instead of carrot. Not the mind of herbed butter where you mince herbs and fold it into softened butter, but actually have a pure green butter with no actual minced herbs in it. How would one go about doing this?

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Matt_67991

I'd start like this http://www.chefsteps.com/activities/basil-oil

Maybe use clarified butter?

Johan_Edstrom_5586

I wonder if the same technique of clarifying and re-clarifying really finely or juiced for that matter

herbs would work?

Manfred_18311

I would very

fine mince the herbs (paste) 20g to 200g Butter, than melt the butter around 25°

C/ 28°C, certainly under 30° C not to cause a separation of water, buttermilk

and fat as wanted by clarified butter.

Best to

fill the minced herbs with the butter in a plastic bag, weld the bag or use zip

lock and keep it in a water bath at 28°

C. Take it out and press the bag carefully to mix the filling. Let it rest

overnight at room temperature. Next day strain the butter from the herbs.

Another way

would be to dry the herbs and use a mortar to pulverize them than use a sieve #

60/ 250 µm and work the powder in the butter.

There are

many way to it. I also could imagine to distill 500g herbs to extract the

herb oil and mix the oil in the butter, but then of course you only have the

taste of herbs but not the color.

Brendan_Lee_56950

@lennard you have access to LN right? I would think about cryoshattering the herbs into a very fine powder and then from there I suspect a clarified butter would be best and trying to proceed with the carotene butter process and see how that goes. I think with the cryoshattered herbs the powder would be so fine that it would be a similar process to the carotene butter.

You could also look at an iSi infusion and then a very fine meshed strainer if you didn't want to heat the herbs.

Samuel_68313

Herbs are going to go brown most of the time, and I guess the bright green colour is pretty important to you. The basil oil that @henri mentioned uses sodium bisulfite to help preserve the colour so I would definitely consider that.

Johan_Edstrom_5586

@SamuelG - Excellent point - Yes +1 on @Henri.

Brandon_Byrd_40557

I made basil oil without the sodium bisulphite and it's stayed green for almost 2 weeks. If you blanch (or cryoshatter) it should take care of enzymatic browning... not sure how much you need extra helpers to keep things from going brown.

Brendan_Lee_56950

If you Google cocktail University Thai basil daiquiri you'll see Dave Arnolds cryoshattering of Thai basil and the color from the drink is what reminded me of the video when answering this question.

Samuel_68313

I believe that's because the extreme cold of liquid nitrogen renders PPO (the enzyme that makes herbs go brown) inactive, and then the alcohol denatures it. I guess the blanching step does pretty much the same but not as effectively. However, I would believe that if you were to just cryoshatter the herb and mix it into butter it would go very brown as you've basically exploded every cell wall.

Mira_63004

Like the ideas flowing here...will be interesting to see what you come up with Lennard!

I've had this idea of Uni butter floating around in my mind...

Manfred_18311

@Lennard, you

would have to narrow it down what to archive.

1. -Taste of herbs in combination of butter

color, or give coloring the advance.
2. -Concessions on the purity or

minimalistic of the process. Butter and Herbs only or adding herb infused oils.

Dried or dehydrated herbs will lose a high

amount of aroma as essential oils containing these aromas and flavors evaporate.

@SamuelG,

not so sure trough with the exploding of every cells, isn’t cyro treatment not

similar to schock frosting, thus resulting in preservation of flavoring value?

Just out of curiosity as I have no practical experience with LN, what do you consider

as source for the occurrence of alcohol in the process?

Samuel_68313

Well I was exaggerating when I said every cell wall, but I would think cryoshattering destroys more than regular chopping. I am not 100% sure but from what I gather the reasons herbs go brown when chopping is because of the enzyme PPO inside the cell walls, which reacts with oxygen. I believe at extreme colds the enzyme becomes inactive, but is not killed, hence when it warms up the browning will still occur.

The reason I mentioned alcohol is because Brendan mentioned it. Dave Arnold created a cocktail by grinding herbs after freezing them with liquid nitrogen, and then immediately mixing the herbs with alcohol. As the alcohol does kill the enzyme it does not go brown. At least as far as I know it. If that is the case, then you can't just cryoshatter to preserve colour.