Buttah!

[Malawry]

I LOVE BUTTER. I usually buy Plugra. Plugra is a creamy, rich butter. It's a little less pricey than the other premium butters, especially if you get it at Trader Joe's ($3 a pound last time I was there). It's the gold standard in my household. I occasionally sample other butters but haven't considered any to be superior enough to be worth buying instead of Plugra unless they're on sale.

I'd love to hear what kinds of butter everybody else uses, and recommendations for which butters to try.

Jinmyo suggested I start a new topic on this, so here I am. Part of this post is pasted from my post in the Dinner thread.

[Jinmyo]

I use Normandy cultured butter. The President's Choice brand of the Canadian Loblaw's chain is really quite respectable.

I'm always on the look out for Italian butters.

[AdamLawrence]

(copied from the Dinner thread)

There's a quite lovely Italian butter I get occasionally in Waitrose (posh English supermarket) called Burro Occelli. According to the very broken English encomium on the packaging, it won some kind of butter taste-off run by Wine Spectator (which suggests it must be available in the US). Whether that's a good or a bad thing, I don't know, but the butter is fab. I recommend it.

cheers

Adam

[mamster]

Back when we were living in NYC (1998-99), something caused the price of butter to jump by more than a dollar.  The only brand unaffected was Plugrá.  The first couple of times we got it, we were amazed at the rich, buttery flavor.  Then we got sick of it and started buying the less rich, less buttery butter again.  This is why they kicked me out of Slow Food.  Just kidding.

Since then I've occasionally bought cultured French butters like Echiré for when the butter is going to be the star, but for everyday use, I'm sticking (ha ha) with Land-o-Lakes.

[Priscilla]

I've been using a Danish butter, Lurpak, for a short while now, which is blessedly cultured and, crucially, fresh.  Found it at my local Persian market.  (A good place to shop for butter, and other good things.)

It is delicious--has become the one to beat.  Just about exactly twice what my default good-quality (but not cultured) unsalted costs, from Alta-Dena, a Southern California dairy.  But Lurpak's low-moisture density and rich cultured flavor is worth far more than twice the price, to me.

I have bought Plugra in the past, at Trader Joe's, but freshness was a problem, or rather lack of freshness.  One never knows on the consumer end exactly where the breakdown in handling occurred, does one.  Would be willing to give it another try, if my Lurpak connection begins to fail.

Isn't Plugra is sold under another name as well?  Some regions may know it under another label.

Priscilla

[Malawry]

I have purchased Plugra under the Keller's label before.

I've seen Lurpak around and will check it out when my current stocks of Plugra are low.

How do the Italian butters stack up? What makes them special?

[Priscilla]

Malawry, Keller's.  Thank you.  Wonder why they use the two names?

Hope you try Lurpak sometime.  Of course, there's the unpredictable freshness thing.  But one hopes for the best.

And I too am intrigued by these Italian butter references.

Priscilla

[Jinmyo]

I remember Italian butter from my childhood. It's, uh, buttery. A nice tang and yet very creamy. Amazing colour. Very different from French butter, which is also good. German butter can be good but I remember it as sometimes being a bit waxy.

The most important thing though is freshness. Unless the butter is exported basically the same day it's packaged it doesn't have long to live after it reaches the New World.

[col klink]

I've only known supermarket butter, but the West coast is pretty lucky to have Tillamook. The salted and unsalted are pretty good, however I swear that their Whey Cream butter is laced with narcotics. Rich and smooth, I regularly fight myself over eating it straight. I'm always embarassed in the morning when I find that the night before I fell prey to toast attacks for the rich creamy goodness of the Whey Cream. Butter paper and crumbs everywhere!

Tillamook is a dairy town (and county) on the coast of Oregon:

There are a number of diary farms in the county though that work for Tillamook. They are mostly known for their cheese but in the 90's they broke butter, yogurt, sour cream, milk and ice cream out into wide distribution.

[Priscilla]

Wow CK Tillamook whey butter sounds great.  (Makes me think of those Italian pigs with the proscuitto-intended legs being fed Parmigiano Reggiano whey.)  Is it salted?  I can find Tillamook here in Southern California, but never unsalted.

I do rely on Tillamook cheese, so dependably good, and, I think, highly underrated, outside the Western U.S.

Priscilla

[stefanyb]

My mother used to refer to salt butter as "storage" butter and wouldn't deign to have it pass her lips as if it was poison.  I think she even thought that it was made from cream that had soured.  I know that the freshest sweet butter is the ultimate butter but what is the actual difference here?

[yvonne johnson]

Like Priscilla, I don't think Lurpak can be beat. From time to time, I try other brands, but I keep coming back to the unsalted Lurpak.

[ckbklady]

Col Klink, if you feel an urge to experiment, try the Keller's butter (which is Plugra under another name) at the Mercer Island Albertson's (and pick up a kosher chicken while you're at it - they have the best chickens I have ever cooked). Or get Plugra under its own name at Trader Joe's at 156th and Northup Wy in Bellevue. I agree that the Tillamook butter is sensational (I used to slice it like cheese and eat it to the horrified gasps of husband) but Kellers is mind-boggling.

Ahh, buttery reverie... in college I dated a Dutch student whose family ran a dairy farm. On weekends, we went out to the farm to help out his father. We made fresh butter (now THAT'S a date!) and ate it on the spot, smeared on saltines I kept in my pockets for the horses. Fresh butter has a simply celestial taste - sweet and tangy. I will recall it on my deathbed, I am sure.

At my house when I was a little kid, we used butter like a spread rather than a condiment. We used to spread 1/4 thick layers between Arrowroot biscuits and squeeze then to extrude "butter worms" from the holes. Many's the day I wish I'd been born 100 years earlier before all of this nonsense about cholesterol, cancer and heart attacks. Of course, then I would also have to do without my computer and all you dear eGulleteers.

[stellabella]

I bought Plugra for a while after returning from Italy, not wanting to let go of the European butter flavor & richness.  It is very good.  I am intrigued by the Lurpak Priscilla mentions and will try to find it, though I have never seen it.

I buy Horizon organic butter.  Just because it's organic.  It tastes fine.  I do love butter, but mostly I cook with it, so texture and flavor matter less to me.

I also buy Horizon organic fat free milk [it's a weird thing about milk--I love real butter & sour cream & cheese, etc, but I can only drink skimmed milk].  A friend who is a total vegetarian and big into organic foods told me that Horizon is NOT a good brand, that the company's practices are not very responsible.  I never followed up on her remark--does anyone have anything to add?  I buy Horizon because it's the only organic brand available to me [i live 50 miles from Atlanta].

[Rachel Perlow]

The description of the Plugra was very intriguing and then I see that it's just Kellers! I like Keller's, but I do tend to stock up on whatever (unsalted only) when there's a sale.

[Pitter]

The Occelli butter from Italy is so good because the cream comes from freely ranging cows grazing on the natural flora of the Piedmont region.  Another butter that I think is fantastic is a sheep's milk butter, packed into a crock by Papillon in France.  There is also a nice cow's milk butter from Spain called Cadi.  All of these are going to be quite different from anything manufactured in the U.S., cultured or not.  I love the cultured butter from Vermont Butter and Cheese, and for everyday use, guess what, it's Land-o-Lakes -- always unsalted.  I'm not wild about Plugra, which is higher fat (82% vs. 80%) and therefore more like the European butters, though it is uncultured.  It all starts and ends with the quality of the cream.

[Malawry]

Hey Stellabella, my natural foods coop started stocking Horizon European-Style butter recently (not sure if that's the precise name). I got all excited because I try to buy organics when a viable option appears, and because this was the only European style butter for sale at said coop. I purchased it and carted it home and immediately slathered it on some toast. Man, what a disappointment. It tasted to me just like regular Horizon butter! Only more expensive. Well, it's slightly richer but not appreciably better. So stick to regular Horizon if you want organic.

I use Farm Families of New England butter in my baking, but now that I've found out Plugra is so cheap at Trader Joe's I'll probably invest in it for future baking fun. I imagine the flavor improvement would be significant.

[Sandra Levine]

The description of the Plugra was very intriguing and then I see that it's just Kellers! I like Keller's, but I do tend to stock up on whatever (unsalted only) when there's a sale.

Rachel, I think Keller's makes more then one kind of butter and the Plugra equivalent is the "European-style" with a higher amount of butterfat.

[Priscilla]

...I don't think Lurpak can be beat.

Yvonne, I already knew you had good taste on account of what you said elsewhere about the Beatles.

Priscilla

[cabrales]

but I do tend to stock up on whatever (unsalted only) when there's a sale.

So far, I haven't bought butter in large quantities for freezing. However, it would save me travel time if butter could be bought in larger quantities and frozen and not have its taste diminished. I'd appreciate input from members on the effects of freezing on butter (please specify temperature at which the freezer is kept).  

[Sandra Levine]

I buy a pound of butter at a time, keep one stick in a glass butter dish in the refrigerator and the rest in the freezer at

-10 F.  If the butter is wrapped in something other than foil, I overwrap it and sometimes put it in a zip-lock freezer bag.  I think butter, because of the high fat content, is one of the food best suited to freezing.  I can't detect the difference between the unfrozen and previously frozen quarters once they defrost.  

The next butter I try will be anItalian butters mentioned above, or Lurpak.  I also like Plugra and the various French butters when they are reasonably fresh.

[stellabella]

cabrales,  i don't know the temp of my freezer, but i always freeze butter, since my trips into atlanta upscale markets are now monthly excursions

i am sure it changes something--taste maybe, but since i mostly cook with butter, i don't notice much problem

malawry--it sounds like you and i both love our bread and butter--i go through phases [right now i am eating my home-blended cold cereal abreakfast], in winter i like hot cereal often, but my favorite breakfast is a toasted bagel--i toast it whole, so that when i slice it open it's moist and steamy inside.  i eat it with thick schlabs of butter and jam [figs are the best], or thick schlabs of cream cheese--i'd say i'm more of a cream cheese person than a straight butter person, unless it is really good butter.

so now you've got me thinking i'm just gonna get me some  plugra next time i see it.

[Kristian]

Reading through this thread, I was constantly thinking what people use the mentioned butters for. I take it is for enjoying with bread like we do in Finland? But, surely, you don't usually mix butter and jam together on a bread?

I never use real butter anymore, cause it's too salty and fatty. I rarely use anything else than cheese and cucumber on my bread anyway, but when I do use butter, it's usually some low-fat (<40%), low-salt margarine variety. I don't think the Finnish brand names would tell you anything, so I'll leave it at that.

[jeremysco]

In the UK Lurpack in just a standard everyday supermarket butter. Nothing special.

Generally the higher the fat content the better. Try to find butters at 80%.

I especially love Butters made with sel de mer. In the UK Waitrose sell a couple of different ones.

I think that Butter is best thickly spread on fresh bread with wild smoked salmon lemon and pepper. Or in a bacon sandwich, or on asparagus or french beans or blackened on Skate or...

[Rachel Perlow]

I never use real butter anymore, cause it's too salty and fatty. I rarely use anything else than cheese and cucumber on my bread anyway, but when I do use butter, it's usually some low-fat (<40%), low-salt margarine variety. I don't think the Finnish brand names would tell you anything, so I'll leave it at that.

OK. I really try to never act mean to other participants, but this is sad! Blech! Yuck! Pitooey! Oy Vey!

First off, butter doesn't have to be salty. I always buy sweet, unsalted, butter. If I want to serve salted butter at the table, I'll add some and mix it in and serve at room temp.

but when I do use butter, it's usually some low-fat (<40%), low-salt margarine variety

Don't equate margarine with butter. Margarine is really bad for you, full of trans-fats. Worse than saturated fat. Also, "low-fat" varieties get that way by mixing in water. You're paying for hydrogenated vegetable oil mixed with water.

If you want to cut down on the fat - use less fat. If you want to cut down on the saturated fats, use olive oil. A particular brand we had recently, called Bellini, was so good. It really tasted almost like melted butter to me. I think we bought it mail order from Jim Dixon (an eGullet member).

OK, rant over. Let me know if you get that olive oil.

Oh, and the cheese & cucumber - is that a soft cheese mixed with shredded cucumber, like a raita but with cheese not yogurt, or a harder cheese with slices of cucumber?