Butter

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Butter is a great food/ingredient. It can be eaten as is, flavored and used as a quick sauce, and it can be used for cooking. For low carbers, there might be some problems finding something to spread butter on, but that's not entirely the case.

Salted vs. Unsalted
Butter comes in two forms: unsalted and ‘regular’ or table butter. Regular butter contains salt. The salt acts as a preservative and it gives additional flavor to the butter. The drawback is that there is no set standard for how much added salt a pound of butter contains. So for cooking purposes, many cooks and chefs prefer to use unsalted butter so they can control the amount of salt in a dish.

Clarified vs Drawn vs Ghee

Clarified butter is unsalted butter than has been gently melted over medium low heat, to prevent the butter from browning. When allowed to sit undisturbed, the melted butter separates into three layers: a foamy top layer, a clear yellowish liquid layer and a milky solid layer. The clear yellowish liquid layer is ‘clarified’ butter. That is, butter with the milk solids removed.

Ghee is made in much the same way as clarified butter. However, the butter is allowed to turn a bit brown during the melting process. This browning gives the ghee a deeper flavor.

Ghee and clarified butter has a slightly longer shelf life than regular butter because the milk solids have been removed. It is the milk solids that cause the butter to become rancid. Ghee and clarified butter will solidify when placed in a refrigerator, but will become liquid at room temperature. They also have a higher frying temperature than regular butter. Again, it’s the milk solids that burn and make high temperature frying for butter less than ideal.

Drawn butter is an interesting creature for foodies. In recent years, drawn butter has become synonymous with clarified butter. However, in cookbooks from the 19th century, drawn butter was a butter sauce thickened with flour.



Flavored Butters

Flavored butters are also called compound butters. They are great to have in the freezer because they add good flavors to vegetables and meats. The flavorings can be chopped fresh herbs, spices, and ingredients like chopped onion, garlic, etc.

To make a flavored butter, use unsalted butter that has been allowed to soften. It is important that the butter is soft enough to be able to easily stir ingredients into it. Do not use melted butter. Add whatever herbs and spices you want. Then either pack it into a freezer-safe container or refrigerate it slightly until it can be molded into a thick rope. Then wrap in plastic wrap and freeze. As you need the flavored butter, slice it off the roll.

Some flavor combinations include:
Lemon-pepper: grated lemon rind and freshly ground black or white pepper
Italian herb: finely minced basil, parsley, oregano, sage, rosemary
Tarragon: finely minced tarragon
Marinara: finely chopped sun-dried tomatoes, finely minced garlic, finely minced basil
Chipotle-Lime: 1/2 chopped chipotle pepper in adobo sauce, 1 lime zest finely grated.

Some uses of flavored butters include:
Toss into hot, steamed vegetables.
Allow to melt on piping hot steaks, chicken or grilled fish.
Use as a stuffing for chicken breast (Chicken Kiev is a chicken breast, stuffed with a flavored butter, that is breaded and cooked. As the chicken cooks, the butter forms a sort of sauce.)

Beurre Blanc (a Butter Sauce)
A beurre blanc is a French butter sauce that's made by reducing vinegar or wine and adding butter. Heavy cream is sometimes added too. Here's a link with recipes and variations of the beurre blanc.
http://frenchfood.about.com/cs/fc101/a/beurreblanc.htm