Butter as a Cooking Medium

Raising the heat a little alters the situation. The higher heat cooks off the water in the butter more rapidly. Once that happens, the butter solids brown, and some adhere to the food, coloring it and flavoring it. The only thing to do once this happens is to make sure the solids don’t burn. One of the advantages of cooking food this way is that the butter can be used as a baste. Basting, spooning butter over what you’re cooking, does two things: it flavors the food with the butter fat and the browning butter solids, and it cooks the food from the top down while the hot pan cooks it from the bottom up.