Norwegian Butter Sauce Recipe - How to Make Sandefjordsmør

Hello this is Chef John from foodwishes.com with Norwegian butter sauce. That's right, I'm going to show you my take on Sandefurdshmurd, which I'm assuming I've horribly mispronounced. But no matter what you call it, this is one amazing sauce. In fact, it's so delicious and beautiful and versatile. I would make this even if it was hard and complicated to do. But it's not. It's actually super simple as you're about to see. So let's go ahead and get started by showing you just why this is so easy. There's basically just four ingredients. All we're going to need for this is some cold butter, some cream, some Italian parsley, and a couple lemons. And by the way, it's probably worth mentioning that even though I'm going to use freshly chopped Italian parsley, cilantro and dill are also very popular and delicious. And what we'll do to get started is squeeze our lemons into the saucepan. Because what I like to do first is reduce this lemon juice on medium until it's almost but not quite gone. And really the only way to screw up this incredibly simple recipe would be to burn this lemon juice. So don't walk away. This is only going to take a couple minutes. And by the way, there's some Norwegian chefs freaking out right now because traditionally the lemon juice is added at the end. But as long as we don't burn it, I much prefer this method. Okay, sometimes when I add the lemon juice at the end, by the time I've squeezed it enough so it's tasting right, the sauce gets thinned out a little more than I want. So by reducing it, we get the same lemon flavor and acidity without the excess moisture. So we'll go ahead and let that reduce on medium until, like I said, it almost but not quite disappears. Okay, right here we're getting close. And we could have stopped. But danger is my middle name. Actually it's Armand. But anyway, I let it go a few more seconds until it looked exactly like this. At which point we are going to quickly dump in our cream. And then what we'll do at this point is raise our heat to medium high. Because before we whisk in our butter, we want this to reduce by about half. And I say we're going to reduce by half. But we're not going to go by amounts. We're going to go by appearance. And what we're shooting for here is to reduce the cream until it's thick enough to coat the back of a spoon. Which is just about where we're at right now. And for me that took about five or six minutes. And as you can see here, that's coating the back of a spoon beautifully. And then what we want to do at this point is turn our heat down to low and start whisking in our butter. And how we're going to do that is by tossing in two or three pieces at a time. And as those pieces of butter get emulsified in, we'll toss more in until the butter's gone. And you can't really do this step too slow. But you can definitely go too fast. All right if we dumped in all our butter at once and the mixture cooled down too quickly, we could have an issue with the sauce breaking. So I guess what I'm getting at is just do it like I'm showing you. So I continued on adding a couple chunks of butter at a time. And ideally we're using Norwegian butter for this. But I'm not sure where to buy that. So I used the next closest thing for me which was Irish butter. But no matter where your butter's from, make sure you're using unsalted. And ideally the milk came from cows that were grass-fed. Which is not only going to be a lot better for you, but your sauce is going to have a much better, much deeper, beautiful golden yellow color. So I continued on adding butter, whisking it in over low heat until it was all incorporated. And if everything's gone according to plan, your sauce should look something like this. Okay for me that is the And then what we'll do to finish this sauce is go ahead and add some salt. We'll also add a little bit of pepper, which traditionally is white pepper. But I'm going to go with red pepper, also known as cayenne. And then last but not least, we will stir in our freshly chopped parsley. And as I mentioned earlier, I'm using parsley here. But both cilantro and dill are really nice in this. And while not as common, tarragon also very delicious. So that of course is going to be up to you. You are, after all, the Ragnar Lothbrok of saucing food that's caught on a hook. So to summarize, any of your fish-friendly herbs will work beautifully here. And then once that's stirred in, we're pretty much done. Except of course we have to taste this before we serve it. And mostly we're tasting for salt. But if you did want to squeeze a little more lemon in, that's fine. That's just you cooking. And then what we'll do once our sauce is set is keep that warm on the back of the stove while we move on to the fish. And what I have here is a salt and a little bit of cayenne, as well as some freshly ground black pepper. And then because we're going to serve this with a butter sauce, I decided to cook the fish in more butter. So I'm going to transfer my salmon into that pan and cook it over medium to medium-high heat until it's cooked to our liking. And as you can see, we are and should season the other side. And yes, I see that scale. I'll remove that as soon as I change camera angles. There we go. And as far as how long to cook your salmon, if that's what you're using, it's tough to give specific times because it's going to depend on how thick your fillets are. And as you can see, mine were definitely different thicknesses, which does present a challenge. So mostly I go by feel. Although one thing I can tell you is you probably shouldn't use tongs to flip salmon unless you want it to tear. So be careful. But anyway, I went ahead and cooked that salmon until I thought it was perfect. And of course that thinner piece did finish first. And if you're faced with a similar situation, just keep that in a warm oven until the bigger piece finishes. And speaking of going by feel, I usually use the same test I use for chicken breast. All right, if it's mushy, it's undercooked. And if it's really hard, it's overcooked. But if it sort of springs back enthusiastically, you should be in pretty good shape. And once our salmon's cooked, we'll go ahead and plate up and ladle over copious amounts of that beautiful, beautiful butter sauce. And then we'll go ahead and finish up with the obligatory and possibly gratuitous extra pinch of parsley. And that's it. Our pan-roasted salmon with Norwegian butter sauce is done. So let me grab a fork and go in for a taste. And sure, you could just spoon over some melted butter and squeeze a lemon on. But there's just something magical that happens when you take all those same ingredients and emulsify them into a rich, luxurious sauce like this. It's just a completely different experience. So I just really do love this technique. And I'm never not impressed with how it transforms those very simple ingredients into something so special. And not only do I love how this tastes and feels, but this is probably one of the most user-friendly sauces ever. And I'll talk about this in the blog post, but this is a very difficult sauce to screw up. And by the way, if you're sort of envious of that beautiful, moist, glistening salmon, that's what yours is going to look like as long as you don't overcook it. Okay? And by the way, if you're curious about those potatoes, those are called turned potatoes. And not to brag, but I'm only one of 11 people left in the world that know how to do those. So maybe I'll show you how to do those one of these days, but probably not. But anyway, that's it. Norwegian butter sauce, or as I prefer to call it, Sandefurtermur. But either way, I really do hope you give this delicious sauce a try soon. So head over to foodwishes.com for all the ingredient amounts and more info, as usual. And as always, enjoy.