How To Stretch Butter

What would you order as emergency food rations if you were stranded on a property with flood waters approaching that were likely to isolate you for up to six weeks?

Last week I asked myself this very question as I listened to Dixie Skuthorpe talk to an ABC AM radio reporter about her food drop from State Emergency Services. Dixie, who lives on a property between Lightning Ridge in NSW and the Queensland border, was about to be isolated by flood waters and was delighted to have received fresh vegetables like carrots and pototoes, weet bix, mince, sausages, shampoo and insect repellent in the air drop.

But what about the perishables I thought? The ones that we consider staples in any kitchen? Well, for milk Dixie probably has a cow in the home paddock and for eggs there’d almost certainly be chickens ‘out the back’ but what about butter? I know I couldn’t do without it and I’m sure I wouldn’t be churning my own as they did in the ‘good old days’!

I suddenly remembered a little paper clipping I found in an old Australian cook book I have called Aunt Mary’s Cookery Book. The previous owner of the book had cut out all sorts of little recipes and hints from papers and magazines and stuck them into this cookbook for reference, just like my mother use to do.

And so there inside the back cover is a recipe for Butter Stretcher. When I first read it I marvelled at the incredible frugalness of stretching butter and the ingenuity required to work out how to do it. It wasn’t until I heard Dixie speak about her isolation that the reality of actually having to stretch butter became obvious - especially in the days when refrigeration was less reliable.

So just in case you get stranded, here’s how you ‘make 1/2lb butter go as far as 1 pound’ - I am yet to try this recipe but if you do, out of necessity or curiosity, please let me know how it works out!

Butter Stretcher

Ingredients

• Half-pound butter
• 1 level tablespoon ground rice
• 1 cup milk
• 1 egg
• Scant ½ teaspoon salt

Method

1. Break butter into pieces in a bowl and beat smooth with a wooden spoon
2. Blend ground rice with milk and then add beaten egg and salt
3. Cook milk mixture over boiling water, stirring continuously until the consistency of thick custard
4. Allow to become cold
5. Beat the cold milk into the softenend butter, a little at a time
6. Beat mixture until smooth and leave to become firm
7. Press to the size and shape of a pound of butter

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