The food dictionary at Epicurious.com gives the following definition:
burr mahn-YAY
French for “kneaded butter”, beurre manié is a paste made of softened butter and flour (usually in equal parts) that is used to thicken sauces.
This has got to be one of the most useful thing we learned at Chef School. Never mind scrounging around for some corn flour to thicken that sauce that simply refuses to thicken and ending up with lumps of unappealing corn starch exploding in your mouth along with your (not quite thickened enough) sauce…
Beurre manié serves the dual purpose of thickening as well as making your sauce nice and glossy at the same time! An easy way to blend it in is to grate it into your dish. Come autumn when I will be cooking more dishes requiring thickening this is going to be a staple of my freezer.
(Image courtesy of The Cook’s Thesaurus)
I must admit, this also resulted in one of my little "Thanks Chef Kylie" moments, up at Camp Scugog in May.
(For those not in the know, it's a charity camp our Rotary Club goes to the same weekend every May to repair and fix up for the season.)
As a newly-invited member of the chef crew for the weekend, I was more than a tad nervous being paired with an Escoffier-credited chef, in the kitchen with a 20-year patry chef, among others – and all led by the general manager of the National Club (also a chef).
So when Day One chef turned to me and said: "Can you get a beure manie" I had a wry smile that I did not have to ask what in blazes he was talking about.
OH — and I needed to use one on the coq au vin next day!
Nice blog. http://fresheats.blogspot.com recommended it. I also started a blog as a diversion from regular life!
i am totally going to make this come fall when it's soup/stew season once again. i love the idea of keeping it in the freezer so you can grate it into your pot when you need it. thanks for the tip!
Great tip. Keep sharing the chef school tips…
… and, of course, the excellent food pics and photos of Cleo eating Neil's food. Your Michigan readers (and children) quite enjoy these.
Steve, I am SURE there will be more such pics.
Though with mardi off to Oz, there will be no one to document the lavish-ness of Mistress Cleo at my dinner plate…