In Praise of Butter Paper

Yes, you read right, I am about to wax lyrical about the paper wrapped around the bloc of butter, and not about butter itself. Don't get me wrong, I think butter is an amazing food, but it already has a huge fan base, and doesn't need any more praise. Butter paper on the order hand is an unsung hero. That thin sliver of foil, lined with a slip of parchment protects the lump of butter from light and fridge odours, but is often unceremoniously discarded, or worse, used to rewrap the butter in a most disorderly and messy way - exposing the butter to all sorts of yuck.



While many people may be avoiding butter and other dairy products in order to reduce their carbon footprint or for dietary reasons, if you are not quite ready to go without butter, one way to offset any possible guilt from buying a pack of butter is to reuse the butter wrapper as many time as possible. It's a small, nearly insignificant act, but the pay out is large. Once opened, a packet of butter should be unwrapped completely and kept in a butter dish. For those of us living in North America, where butter is sold in one pound blocs, the bloc should be cut in half lengthwise, since most dishes are designed for 200-250g blocs (more or less half a pound). The excess butter should be tightly (and neatly) re-wrapped in its wrapper, and kept frozen until needed. Although salted butter has a nearly indefinite shelf-life, unsalted butter can - and will - spoil: without salt, not only will the fats in butter go rancid, but the whey can also go horribly mouldy.



Once butter paper no longer serves its purpose as a wrapper, it still has a plethora of uses and does not deserve to be thrown out like some lowly detritus. Carefully, fold up the paper, butter side to butter side (to reduce mess), and keep in the freezer until it's called for duty. The first, and most obvious, use for butter paper is for greasing cake tins and other cooking implements. Instead of using butter from the dish, just use the already buttery paper to smear an even coat of fat on baking moulds and trays. One butter wrapper can be used at least twice before it runs dry. And yet, it still has other purposes to fulfill.



Once devoid of all traces of butter is when these papers really come to the fore. The wrappers can be used instead of tin foil in most cases, with the added advantage that the parchment layer will prevent the foil from disintegrating on contact with acidic foods. Used paper-side down, it prevents the formation of a film on cream sauces or custards (bypassing queries about the safety of placing plastic wrap straight onto hot foods.) Wrapped around portions of fish, butter paper makes the ideal papillote with less fiddling than parchment paper on its own. Butter papers are also ideal for tenting over cuts of meat resting after cooking - several pieces can be patched together to cover larger chunks of meats. Left-over foods can be tightly wrapped up with the convenience of plastic film wrap, but without the guilt of single use disposability. Placed butter-side up under foods destined for the oven, it minimizes sticking and scraping - you also get bonus buttery flavour to boot.



I'll admit that saving butter papers was born out of necessity more than anything else. Restaurant kitchens consume an enormous amount of parchment paper, and though it is usually readily availble, sometimes no one orders a new roll before the old one runs out. Hence the hoarding of butter papers in one's fridge drawer for emergencies. The idea appealed to my sensibilities and migrated home, where new uses for reuse came to light. Though its reuse is finite, being a waste by-product removes much of the guilt of using a disposable wrap. Butter paper may not be quite as sturdy as plastic wrap, or as cute as beeswax wrappers, but it combines the best of tin foil and parchment paper all in one, and by reusing it a few times before discarding it, its journey to the landfill is delayed. And that is win-win in my book.




Bon App'!