beurre noisette

9.9

Butter cooked until light brown that has a nutty taste and is used as a sauce

noun
/bɜr nɔɪˈzɛt/

Specialized

: mantequilla avellana

Lecter stirs at his beurre noisette.

Examples

A beurre noisette can transform simple dishes into gourmet creations with its unique taste.
The chef drizzled the beurre noisette over the asparagus, adding a rich, nutty flavor.
To enhance the sauce, she incorporated a beurre noisette made from fresh butter and herbs.

Synonyms

brown butter

vsbeurre noisette

2 2.9

Melted butter cooked until it turns brown and tastes nutty

is cooked only to a light brown rather than to a full brown

Surface Forms

beurre noisette singular

beurres noisettes plural

Morphology

beurre + noisette

The phrase literally combines 'beurre' (butter) with 'noisette' (light hazel-brown / hazelnut-like), so a learner who knows both constituents can infer butter that has been browned to a hazelnut color and flavor. This is a straightforward compositional culinary term (equivalent to 'brown butter') and is cross-linguistically familiar, so its meaning is directly derivable from the parts.

Etymology

Beurre noisette comes from French cooking: you heat beurre, or butter, until the little bits in it turn light brown and smell like noisette, which means 'hazelnut'. So beurre noisette refers to butter cooked until it is brown and 'nutty' in taste, used as a sauce or to add extra flavor.