Beurre Manié

“Manipulated butter" is the literal translation of this French culinary term. Beurre manié is a thickening agent for sauces and it is composed of butter and flour kneaded or blended together into a paste.

The thickening agent must be used at the end of the cooking process, and a sauce should not boil after it has been thickened with beurre manié.

The advantage of using beurre manié is that a sauce thickened with it will not lump, and will also be enriched. It is the standard, wholly admirable and easy French way for making sauces of a desired consistency, and it is highly recommended to all cooks outside of France.

Beurre manié is made by blending flour and butter together with the fingertips and rolling the mixture into balls the size of a pea. Then the heat under the sauce to be thickened is turned very low, and the beurre manié is dropped, a little at a time, into the sauce, and stirred until thoroughly blended.

The sauce should simmer only a few minutes after this, to dispel the starchy taste of the flour.

Beurre manié can be made in any proportions of flour and butter to suit the cook and the purpose. Usually, however, there are two basic proportions, one French, which uses twice as much flour as butter, and one American,which uses equal parts of flour and butter, and thus makes for a richer sauce.

French Buerre Manié

For a thin sauce, use:

1 ½ teaspoons butter and 1 tablespoon of flour to thicken 1 cup of liquid

For a medium sauce, use:

1 tablespoon butter and 2 tablespoons of flour to thicken 1 cup of liquid

For a thick sauce, use:

1 ½ to 2 tablespoons butter and 3 to 4 tablespoons flour to thicken 1 cup of liquid

American Buerre Manie

For a thin sauce, use:

1 tablespoon butter and 1 tablespoon of butter to thicken 1 cup of liquid

For a medium sauce, use:

2 tablespoons butter and 2 tablespoons of flour to thicken 1 cup of liquid

For a thick sauce, use:

3 to 4 tablespoons butter and 3 to 4 tablespoons flour to thicken 1 cup of liquid