What exactly is wine butter?

I've seen dishes with red wine butter and salmon. The red wine butter involves shallot, balsamic, red wine, and herbs. You let the liquid reduce and then add butter. Once it gets to the right consistency, spoon onto plastic wrap and form a log. Pop that in the freezer, then slice once ready to use.

Compound butter. Butter that is whipped with other ingredients/flavors added to it, in this case red wine but it could be anything you want depending upon what you are serving it with.

I have always known it as compound butter and never heard of wine butter.

MIght be a beurre rouge. Like a beurre blanc just made with red wine.

How does one make saffron butter?

Have you eaten there? I always pass the one in Chicago on my bus route on my way to work. Looks pretty fancy. I've never been to a French restaurant all swanky like that.

>How does one make saffron butter? <

I'm not familiar with that as a compound butter. It's usually a saffron flavored butter sauce.

good question. safforn doesnt diffuse in oil right? but in water???

Because Saffron is slightly sweet I have made a weak simple syrup and infused the threads into that. Add that reduction into the whipped butter and walah, saffron butter.

What would you use that with, Chefhow?

A poached piece of fish, a sauteed Sole, Moi or a delicate veggie. It would be more to accompany a light flavored fish with a delicate texture instead of a sauce that may be over powering.

Saffron butter is a bit of a staple in kebab cuisine, especially Persian style. Toast a few threads of saffron in a pan, crush them in a mortar, steep them in a very little water for a few minutes, finally add the strong saffron "tea" to a little melted butter. Use the saffron butter to baste kebabs just before they come off the grill.

I've never heard of making a saffron infusion with sweetened water -- other than for desserts. Nor have I heard of a compound butter using saffront at all. Doesn't mean it isn't good, just sayin' it's unusual is all.

On the other hand, a compound butter made with highly reduced red wine and shallots and lots of parsley is a classic. So much so that it would be a little surprising that no one recognized it -- but compound butters just aren't that prevalent. Anyway (anywho?), the major variations are cooking the shallots in the red wine, then straining them out, so only their essence goes into the compound butter; and adding back minced, slightly softened shallots to the reduced red wine.

BDL