This Guy Cooks

  • Recipes
    • The TenThe ten I cook on repeat
    • Top RecipesThe most-loved on the site
    • All RecipesThe full archive
  • About
  • Join
  • Shop
menu icon
go to homepage
  • Recipes
    • The TenThe ten I cook on repeat
    • Top RecipesThe most-loved on the site
    • All RecipesThe full archive
  • About
  • Join
  • Shop

search icon
Homepage link
  • Recipes
    • The TenThe ten I cook on repeat
    • Top RecipesThe most-loved on the site
    • All RecipesThe full archive
  • About
  • Join
  • Shop

×
Home - Technique - Butter Basting

Butter Basting

A sliced ribeye topped with a puck of miso butter, basted in the pan as it seared.

Tilt the pan, spoon the foaming butter over continuously, and keep that frying sound going so you don't lose temperature.

Basting is a heat delivery system

It looks like a finishing flourish. It's not. Foaming butter carries heat onto the top of a piece of meat that the pan can only reach from below, and onto the parts a pan never touches at all: the fat cap, the curve of a chop, the sides of a fillet.

The sound is the temperature read

By the time you're basting, the butter has browned and its own water is long gone. So the crackle you're keeping going is the meat's moisture hitting hot fat. While you can hear it, fat is landing on the meat hot enough to be doing work. When it goes quiet, the fat has stopped meeting moisture, and you're painting the meat rather than cooking it.

So the sound isn't incidental. It's the whole instrument.

And the crust is the pan's job, not the butter's. Butter can't get hot enough for long enough to build a crust; it burns first. What basting reaches is everything the pan can't: the top, the fat cap, the curve of a chop, the sides of a fillet.

Basting is the opposite of the searing rule, one minute later

In a sear you leave the meat completely alone and wait for it to release. In a baste you move constantly, on purpose, because the fat runs straight off and has to be put back. Two adjacent moments in the same pan with opposite instructions, which is why each one needs its own cue.

Off the heat it's just dressing

Anything off the heat. A steak on a cutting board being spooned with pan butter is being dressed, not basted, and there's no sound to keep going.

Popular Recipes

  • A plated dish featuring a piece of glazed meat with a creamy white sauce artistically swirled on a beige plate, drizzled with brown sauce, with a jar of seasoning partially visible in the corner.
    Pork Coppa: What the Cut Is and How to Cook It
  • A bowl of casarecce in tomato sauce beside a bottle of Bona Furtuna passata.
    Two-Ingredient Passata Sauce
  • A plate with sliced cooked duck breast, arugula, and a grilled half peach, with bottles of balsamic glaze and sherry cooking wine nearby on a dark surface.
    Cast Iron Pork Chops, Sherry Pan Sauce, Balsamic-Lacquered Peaches
  • Six dishes finished with beurre blanc: halibut with caviar, seared scallops, roasted asparagus, a potato rosti, salmon with dill beurre blanc, and shaved asparagus with caviar.
    Beurre Blanc
  • Sun-dried tomato hummus with handmade pita
    Sun-Dried Tomato Hummus with Handmade Pita
  • Avocado toast with tomato confit, a crispy fried egg, and a raw drizzle of Bona Furtuna Everyday olive oil
    Bona Furtuna EVOO Avocado Toast, Five Ways

Seasonal Recipes

  • Grilled shrimp glazed in Roland Foods Salsa Macha, served with grilled corn brushed in macha mayo
    Salsa Macha Grilled Shrimp with Grilled Corn & Macha Mayo
  • Overhead of a sliced bone-in chuletón ribeye on a white plate, fanned and topped with peach-and-shallot sauce, held over a wood board.
    Beef Chuletón with Peach Sauce
  • A whole roasted fish topped with green herbs sits on a platter with roasted red potatoes, sliced fennel, and greens, drizzled with herb sauce. The food is arranged on an oval dish on a wooden table.
    Whole Roasted Branzino with Pesto Potatoes & Herb Fennel Salad
  • A glass of chocolate protein shake sits in front of containers labeled Momentous Whey Protein Isolate and Momentous Creatine on a wooden surface.
    Peanut Butter Espresso Creatine Smoothie
  • A bowl of noodle soup with scallions and a boiled egg sits on a wooden surface next to a carton of miso ginger beef bone broth.
    5-Ingredient Miso Ginger Ramen
  • A bowl of fish fillet in broth is garnished with asparagus spears and green peas. A box labeled Bone Broth is partially visible in the upper right corner on a dark surface.
    Spring Brodo with Cod, Asparagus, and Peas

Footer

Terms & Policies

  • Privacy Policy
  • Cookie Policy
  • Site Disclaimer
  • Accessibility Policy
  • Terms and Conditions

Newsletter

  • Sign Up! for emails and updates

Navigation

  • Contact
  • About