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Plugrí¡ Unsalted Butter - European Style Butter Made by the Dairy Farmers of America


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Has anyone seen Plugra unsalted butter in the area? I'm hoping maybe Whole Foods carries it. It's recommended in the recipe to reproduce the butter chicken from Trattoria Sostanza because of it's lower water content so my next question is, if not, does anyone know of another butter that might be available easily in MD (Whole Food's, MOM's, somewhere like that) that has a similar lower water content? FWIW, another article says you should be aiming for 82-85% butterfat  - I have no idea if that's correct and/or if % butterfat is listed on packaging?

ETA: Just noticed this note in the recipe: You can substitute unsalted Challenge Dairy's European Style butter.

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Has anyone seen Plugra unsalted butter in the area? I'm hoping maybe Whole Foods carries it. It's recommended in the recipe to reproduce the butter chicken from Trattoria Sostanza because of it's lower water content so my next question is, if not, does anyone know of another butter that might be available easily in MD (Whole Food's, MOM's, somewhere like that) that has a similar lower water content? FWIW, another article says you should be aiming for 82-85% butterfat  - I have no idea if that's correct and/or if % butterfat is listed on packaging?

ETA: Just noticed this note in the recipe: You can substitute unsalted Challenge Dairy's European Style butter.

They have a locator page on their website where you can enter your zip code and see who sells it (make sure to specify unsalted).

You might save yourself some legwork if you call first (the numbers of the retailers are listed).

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I've seen Plugrí¡ butter (not sure about unsalted) recently, and the only three stores I've been to are Whole Foods on Leesburg Pike, Harris-Teeter on N. Harrison Street, and Arrowine. Between this and their webpage, I don't think this will be hard to find at all. It's made by an American Co-op, so places like Harris-Teeter would be logical.

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They have a locator page on their website where you can enter your zip code and see who sells it (make sure to specify unsalted).

You might save yourself some legwork if you call first (the numbers of the retailers are listed).

Great, thank you! Didn't even consider checking their website for a store locator. The Wegman's by me that I stop at routinely carries it in their cheese department, where I never would have thought to look had I not called.

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Great, thank you! Didn't even consider checking their website for a store locator. The Wegman's by me that I stop at routinely carries it in their cheese department, where I never would have thought to look had I not called. 

Incidentally, their name rhymes with <<plus gras>> which means "more fat" in French. I wonder how much they paid someone to come up with that one.

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It is routinely carried by both the stores in my little hillbilly town in the mountains of North Carolina (Ingles and Bi-Lo, the latter which now owns Winn-Dixie: we're talking real southernness here).  Salted and unsalted. They even put it on sale sometimes. It surely can't be hard to find in DC.

Plugra also produces clarified butter, available in five pound tubs at Restaurant Depot (one of my usual stops in Atlanta). I leave a tub out on the counter next to the range for sauteing, and use a lot of it that way.

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Thank you, this is very helpful. I really only use butter to cook with these days since I no longer generally eat bread although typically I cook with ghee, not butter. But I suspect if I turned the tub of butter into ghee it would then keep well. Thoughts on that?

I've only made ghee on a case-by-case basis, so I don't know how well it would keep.  I know I've seen shelf-stable ghee in stores, but I'm not sure about homemade.

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The article amusingly asserts that Plugra butter is from France.

Wouldn't this dish really be better if the chicken were left on the bone? (I'm totally open to a "no" answer.)

I wondered that myself, especially since it's difficult to find boneless, skin ON chicken breasts (I decided I'll just be breaking down chickens for mine, ack), but I wonder if they wouldn't cook unevenly if the bone were still in. Also, would they set evenly in the pan? I almost think there's a bit of poaching that goes on given the massive amount of butter in the pan. The chicken comes out incredibly moist, but with an amazing crispy crust.

Joe, we had the bistecca as well, phenomenal. The dessert you're thinking of may be a homemade cake that has layers of meringue and whipped cream. When we went it was served with teeny tiny wild strawberries, but I would imagine those are seasonal and thus you may have had a lemon version. Our server told us he had made it with his own hands. :)

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I wondered that myself, especially since it's difficult to find boneless, skin ON chicken breasts (I decided I'll just be breaking down chickens for mine, ack), but I wonder if they wouldn't cook unevenly if the bone were still in. 

Choirgirl, it would help people if you told them where you lived.

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Thank you, this is very helpful. I really only use butter to cook with these days since I no longer generally eat bread although typically I cook with ghee, not butter. But I suspect if I turned the tub of butter into ghee it would then keep well. Thoughts on that?

Yes, that's the one. Although I will say that I searched around quite a lot and it seems that the chefs at Sostanza actually char the chicken on the charcoal grill first, then in addition to also coating it in flour they also coat it in egg. The recipe is missing those 2 details. And I tend to believe the other source since there were pictures from the kitchen, both of the pieces of chicken on the fire and the bowl of egg next to the bowl of flour. :P I don't have a charcoal grill and doubt that flashing them on my gas grill would have the same effect so I think I will skip that step, but I plan to use the egg.

ETA: I also found a YouTube video where a couple used this recipe to cook the chicken, but they couldn't find the Plugra butter so used some standard grocery store brand and reported that the dish didn't taste exactly the same, that there was a nuttiness to the butter that was missing. Who knows.

Ghee keeps just about forever, especially if you keep it in the refrigerator.  It's a great way to extend the shelf life of butter.

I'm going to guess that the "nuttiness to the butter" taste is a function of the butter browning, not the butterfat content.  The butter is cooking for 25 minutes before more butter is added, then the dish is cooked "to a nutty brown".  I researched this once before, but couldn't recall the details, so looked it up again: typical grocery store butter is about 80% fat, Plugra about 82%.  That small amount of extra water in regular butter is going to be driven off by the heat well before the butter starts to brown.  I truly believe there will be no taste difference.

Don't get me wrong, Plugra is my favorite brand of butter... for pastry.  I think there is a noticeable difference in the quality of croissants, puff, pate brisee, etc.  In those applications, it's critical that the water content of the butter turn to steam immediately.   But for a dish cooked for 25 minutes?  nah.

Thinking too much about this, I'll agree that the flavor profile of the butter could make a difference.  It's another reason I like Plugra for pastry: it's a very clean, neutral taste.

It will be an awesome dish no matter what butter you use.

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Choirgirl, it would help people if you told them where you lived.

I live in Laurel, MD, but I've already pretty much exhausted the local options that meet my criteria for meat that comes from happy chickens :P so I ordered the chickens I plan to break down. I did check with Whole Foods, but my store only does bone in.

Porcupine, I thought that as well regarding the nuttiness, but the chicken is cooked at 500 degrees so I didn't think there could be user error in terms of whether the butter browned! However, I didn't consider that more butter is added at the end, maybe that's where they went wrong. But yes, any piece of chicken cooked in a pound of butter is destined to be pretty freaking delicious I think.  :lol:

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I live in Laurel, MD, but I've already pretty much exhausted the local options that meet my criteria for meat that comes from happy chickens :P so I ordered the chickens I plan to break down. I did check with Whole Foods, but my store only does bone in.

In that case, check with Pool Boy.

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Plugras is everywhere. I have seen it at the Laurel Giant, the Fulton and Columbia Harris Teeters and certainly the Wegmans in Columbia and Lanham. It's a good butter, and there are other 'european style' butters similar to it. Sometimes you have to look in the cheese sections to find it. Still, American imitations of true european butter still pale in comparison to the real deal.

As for where to get skin on, boneless chicken anything, I have had the best luck at Wegmans believe it or not. Not always, and I tend to eat very little chicken breast (I prefer thighs and legs), but with some good regularity. Plus they tend to carry organic/humane-ish chickens, too. Not ultra local and perfection, but an option in the correct direction. I am also sure you could ask Laurel Meat Market to break down a chicken exactly the way you want. Their chickens are semi local from Amish and Menonite farmers in PA and MD, and thus semi-humane if not truly organic. I'd call them ahead to place the order as waiting for them to do the work is a pain, especially if they are busy. Plus, if you call ahead, they tend to do better work because they are not rushed.

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 Their chickens are semi local from Amish and Menonite farmers in PA and MD, and thus semi-humane if not truly organic. 

I don't have specific information about the humane level of these chickens, but I do know that Amish are not necessarily known for their humane approach to livestock raising -- some of the worst puppy mill operations are run by Amish.  Buyer beware!

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I don't have specific information about the humane level of these chickens, but I do know that Amish are not necessarily known for their humane approach to livestock raising -- some of the worst puppy mill operations are run by Amish.  Buyer beware!

Yep. I happen to be working my way up to being a dog trainer (in my spare time :rolleyes: ) and I have seen some really poorly socialized (and with poor genetics) puppies that have come from Amish farmers. :( In theory at least the animals raised by the Amish have access to pasture and don't live in feedlots and thus have better levels of omegas, etc. than CAFO meat would although the last time I asked the meat at the Laurel meat market was finished on corn.

Huge digression. Pool Boy, thanks for the feedback, but I really am set with the SMC chickens. ;)  I did check Wegman's as well and they didn't have skin on. I want to test the recipe out anyway so I'm going to pick up 2 bone in breasts from Whole Foods today since I have to go there anyway and get a little extra practice deboning the breasts. I'm pretty adept at breaking down chickens, but I rarely remove the bones (why would you, at least in most cases? :) ).

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Yep. I happen to be working my way up to being a dog trainer (in my spare time :rolleyes: ) and I have seen some really poorly socialized (and with poor genetics) puppies that have come from Amish farmers. :( In theory at least the animals raised by the Amish have access to pasture and don't live in feedlots and thus have better levels of omegas, etc. than CAFO meat would although the last time I asked the meat at the Laurel meat market was finished on corn.

Huge digression. Pool Boy, thanks for the feedback, but I really am set with the SMC chickens. ;)  I did check Wegman's as well and they didn't have skin on. I want to test the recipe out anyway so I'm going to pick up 2 bone in breasts from Whole Foods today since I have to go there anyway and get a little extra practice deboning the breasts. I'm pretty adept at breaking down chickens, but I rarely remove the bones (why would you, at least in most cases? :) ).

SMC chicken = South Mountain Creamery chickens?

I agree, I almost always leave bones in. Although, I do a riff chicken thigh recipe where I get them boneless because it is meant for faster cooking on a weeknight.

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Oh my god, I have done it:

IMAG4639.jpg

I had to clean the pan out and put fresh butter in at one point because it was getting too black, but otherwise it was easy to pull off and the result is freaking delicious. I did end up searing off the breast on my gas grill before dipping in flour & egg because I'm a perfectionist. :P

SMC chicken = South Mountain Creamery chickens?.

Yes

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