Fresh Butter, By Hand

Tonight when I returned home a little late from the VFW, Ikuko was putting the finishing touches on a nice chicken stew with lots of root veggies including my favorite, rutabagas. She makes her chicken stew with just white wine, salt and pepper, some garlic, a small handful of dried marjoram and finishes it with heavy cream.

The cream container was still sitting on the counter. The cream was left over from holiday baking and cooking. She said it was still good but was getting old so she was going to throw it away. Remembering back seventy-some years to helping Grandma Mac churn butter, I said, "Don't throw it out, I'll make some butter," She looked at me doubtfully but after fifty-two years of marriage she has learned that I know what I'm talking about. At least sometimes.

The stew was excellent with succulent chicken, delicious veggies and tasty sauce. Marjoram and chicken, enhanced with the wine and garlic get a synergistic boost. When the flavor of the rutabagas joins in, it's heaven on earth.

After dinner I was ready to start making butter, but Kuro had other ideas. It was, afterall, time for his walk, so nothing would do but I get my jacket and reflective vest and he, his leash, and off we set. It was warmer tonight with very little wind so we were warm and ready to go to work when we got home.

Not being a professional blogger, I didn't think to document the progress of the butter making until halfway through but this isn't a cooking blog, it's more of a whatever-catches-my-attention blog. I suspect there are plenty of places on the internet where a person could find descriptions and even U-Tube films of how to make butter at home.

Back to the butter, or should I say cream, at this point. Strange as it may seem, we don't have a butter churn amongst our kitchen equipment, so I started by using a hand-held mixer to whip the cream until it was past the "stiff peaks" stage. I'm not sure if I could have kept on using the power mixer but I stopped and switched to a wooden stirrer I made out of maple a few years ago. (Maybe I should have looked for a U-Tube video.) It's a pleasure to use but my arms and shoulders began to tire after thirty minutes of mixing. Thank goodness the butterfat began to come together about then.

I patted and pressed the butterfat and then squeezed the buttermilk out. Next was washing in cold water followed by more squeezing.

After washing and squeezing some more I consolidated the butter into three pieces and weighed them.

 I should mention here that we like unsalted butter. If you prefer salted butter, this is the time to add the salt. Add in your favorite kind of salt and knead the butter some more while it's still not refrigerator hard. Since I'm sure I didn't do a real good job of washing all the buttermilk out of the butter, it would be excellent for using in browned butter recipes.

The cream container had been about three-quarters full when I started, so from the approximately three pints of cream we ended up with 1 pound four ounces of butter. 

Economically, it doesn't make sense to make your own butter at home, unless you have access to fresh milk from a friendly dairyman for little or no cost. But, on the other hand, instead of pouring the old cream down the drain, we now have fresh butter. 

It would have been nice to have a churn but it was rewarding to make do with what we had handy. My arms and shoulders will be a little stiff tomorrow but I got to burn off a few of the excess calories from the chicken stew. 

The best part was watching the expression on Ikuko's face as she saw the butter materialize from that cream. Her disbelief turned to pleasure as she watched that old magic of white cream turning to yellow butter using nothing but elbow grease. 

Older son, Glenn, and Monica live nearby, have backyard chickens, and sometimes present us with fresh real free-range eggs.Tomorrow morning I'm going to have a couple of their eggs cooked in browned butter with buttered toast.  Yum, yum!