Fats · Bt

Butter

Smoke point 150 °C · milk solids burn

Per 100 g

717 kcal Energy

0.9 g Protein

0.1 g Carbs

81.1 g Fat

0 g Fibre

Gluten-free DAIRY

Let’s cook with it → Invent something with it

What it is for

They carry aroma. Most smell molecules dissolve in fat rather than water, which is why you bloom spices in oil. They also conduct heat, shorten gluten and soften texture.

Where it catches you out

Every fat has its own smoke point. Butter burns at 150 °C, extra virgin olive oil holds to 190 — choose the fat for the job, not the bottle.

The knack

Add a spoon of neutral oil alongside it: the mix survives a higher temperature before the solids burn.

Storage and health

How to keep it, and who it suits.

Keeping it

Wrapped in the fridge, in its own compartment because it takes up odours, for 1-3 months; frozen, 6-9. Salted butter keeps longer.

Gluten-free

Plain butter is naturally gluten-free.

Allergen: DAIRY

Glycaemic index

This ingredient carries no meaningful carbohydrate, so it has no glycaemic index. On its own it will not move blood sugar; what you eat alongside it decides that.

What it works with

Pairings, and the reason for each

"They go well together" is not an explanation. Every pairing below has a chemical or structural mechanism under it.

Chilli flakes →

Capsaicin is strongly lipophilic with a log P around 3.8 and effectively insoluble in water. Melting chilli into hot butter is a solvent extraction that also pulls out the fat-soluble red pigment capsanthin, which is why the topping is both hot and vividly coloured.

Mint →

Carvone and menthol are terpenoids that dissolve into butterfat; the brief sizzle extracts them and the fat spreads them across a whole bowl of yoghurt or soup.

Also works with

Flour

Sugar

Rice

Pasta

Egg

Honey

What it fights with

Flour

High dry heat without clarifying: the 4% milk solids scorch well below the fat’s own limit.

What goes on top

Browned butter is the archetypal Turkish topping, alone or with chilli and mint

Key compounds

Bütirik asit: The short-chain acid that gives butter its identity and, when free, its rancid note.
Alkilpirazinler: Form when the milk solids Maillard at 140–150 °C — the entire flavour of beurre noisette.

Nutritionally

Butter is about 80% fat, 16% water and 4% milk solids. The water is why it behaves differently from oil in pastry, and the solids are why it browns where oil does not.

Terms on this page

Maillard: Protein meeting sugar above 140 °C to produce crust, colour and that roasted smell.

Where it turns up

What is made with it

13 dishes in the database use it.

Soups 5

Highland yoghurt soup

The default Turkish yoghurt soup and the textbook terbiyeli çorba. Rice simmers in water, yoghurt, flour and egg yolk are beaten separately, tempered with hot broth, returned to the pot and thickened without ever boiling. Finished with dried mint bloomed in butter.

Wedding soup

A ceremonial soup cooked in meat broth whose identity is its terbiye: strained yoghurt, egg yolk, flour and lemon juice beaten separately, tempered, and stirred in. Finished with butter and chilli.

İç Anadolu, Marmara

Toyga soup

A thicker, more archaic cousin of yayla çorbası: hulled wheat instead of rice, strained yoghurt instead of plain. A hospitality dish made in big pots at religious holidays, eaten hot or cold.

Afyonkarahisar, Amasya, Kayseri, Sivas

Ayran soup

A grain and pulse soup carried on thinned yoghurt. Wheat and chickpeas are soaked overnight, boiled separately, then folded into salted, watered yoghurt. Made hot in some regions and cold in others.

Erzurum, Van, Diyarbakır, Malatya

Lebeniye soup

A yoghurt soup thickened with chickpeas and hulled wheat, finished with garlic and mint in butter. The Antep version adds small köfte. In Mardin it goes by çoban çorbası.

Gaziantep, Hatay, Diyarbakır, Mardin

Mains 4

Mantı

Tiny dough parcels are boiled, laid over garlic yoghurt and finished with sizzled butter and chilli. Dried mint and sumac come last.

Kayseri

Ali Nazik

The Gaziantep classic: charred aubergine crushed with garlicky yoghurt under sautéed lamb. The aubergine must meet fire; made with oven-roasted aubergine it is simply not the dish.

Gaziantep

Yuvalama

Tiny balls of rice flour and minced lamb, rolled by hand, cooked with lamb shank and chickpeas, with a yoghurt and butter sauce stirred in at service. The consistency is close to a soup, but in Gaziantep it counts as a main.

Gaziantep

Small meatballs in yoghurt

Tiny bulgur-cased köfte cooked with chickpeas in a yoghurt broth. Gaziantep sources insist it is not yuvalama: yuvalama’s balls are rice flour, ufak köfte’s are bulgur.

Gaziantep

Desserts 2

Yoghurt syrup cake

A pale tray bake cut into squares or diamonds and drenched in cold syrup. It looks like revani but is made with flour rather than semolina, and the yoghurt is genuinely in the batter.

Kayseri, Trakya

Revani

A semolina syrup cake. Butter is whipped to a foam, then eggs, sugar and semolina go in; baked at 165 °C and soaked with light syrup while still warm.

Sauces & finishes 2

Sizzled butter

Butter heated in a small pan until it foams, met with chilli flakes and poured over cold garlic yoghurt. The most characteristic Turkish finish there is: mantı, yayla çorbası, Ali Nazik, çılbır.