Butter as a Finisher, Enricher, and Thickener

Most hot, stock-based sauces are improved when you finish them by swirling in a little butter just before serving. In professional kitchen parlance, this is called mounting a sauce with butter, or monté au beurre. The butter smoothes out the texture of the sauce, making it more voluptuous and satisfying.

If you work an equal volume of flour into solid butter, you will have something called kneaded butter, beurre manié (burr man-YAY), which is whisked into a sauce. A loose, broth-like sauce will become opaque and thicken as the flour grains, separated from one another by a coating of butter, expand in the hot liquid. It’s a terrific way to enrich a sauce while improving its texture.