You can of course make clarified butter at home. Get a pack of ordinary unsalted butter and gently melt it in a pan until it becomes a liquid, draw the resulting nectar off and the milk solids left behind can be thrown away.

The butter is now’clarified’, in other words cleared of anything that would prevent it being heated up to a very high temperature (smoke point). Plain butter unfortunately burns and discolours all too easily at heat, delicious though it is for other uses. Like spreading thickly on toast.

Making clarified butter is a fuss though; it’s all too easy to ruin it and of course you’re throwing a substantial portion of your original butter away, while probably clogging up your drains into the bargain.

So a pack of Lurpak’s already clarified butter from the new  Cook’s Range is a great fridge staple, particularly as it has a longer refrigerator life than plain butter, is more  economical, and just plain tasty.

Clarified butter has many uses. In Asian cooking it’s called ghee and adds a real richness to curries, one you simply don’t get using oils. A classic European use is for Hollandaise sauce, which could be made with ordinary butter but is much finer using clarified butter in the classic haute cuisine style.

My efforts in the past have failed pretty miserably but I found that using Lurpak’s own Hollandaise Sauce recipe from chef Tom Sellers it actually worked out perfectly for slathering over my new season sprouting broccoli and of course asparagus. A real decadent treat.

It also makes a pretty good simple sauce, if a bit of a naughty one, on its own. Melted in a pan, or you can use a microwave if you’re careful to go slowly, you can add sage leaves to gently infuse and then pour it over some spinach and ricotta ravioli as we did. The ravioli were shop bought, but this simple sauce made them a bit more special on a weekday night

And of course clarified butter’s high smoke point makes it ideal for sautéing, that very high temperature cooking that locks in flavour. Use a vegetable oil if you wish, but clarified butter will make that salmon sing and that steak very special. And of course let’s not forget about potting. Clarified butter is what you lavishly pour around sweet brown shrimps, chill to firmness and then serve to guests while making jokes about flared trousers and Abigail’s party. Yes it’s oh so retro but the joking stops when you spread the mix onto some good brown bread. Butter heaven definitely has a place reserved for clarified butter and Lurpak are angels for making it so easy.

Lurpak® Cooks Range Clarified Butter (£3.25rrp/250g)