According to this recipe:
To make shrimp scampi you want to first cook the (marinated) shrimps in olive oil, then remove them, then lightly brown garlic slices, add white wine and let the alcohol evaporate, then add butter to melt and add the shrimps back.
Is there some specific reason to avoid putting the butter in before the wine?
I ask because in the video they mistakenly put the butter first and then they even throw the whole thing away and start over.
Best Answer
When adding wine for such a sauce, you want to reduce it down quite a bit (not to complete drynesss, though). The butter is there to give the sauce body by thickening it. But as there's not much that acts as an emulsifier1 except the butter proteins, you don't want to heat it more than strictly necessary once you add the butter: excessive heat would denature the proteins and destroy the emulsifier properties. This kind of sauce is also very difficult to reheat without it separating.
And of course, reducing a water-based liquid with a lot of oil in the pan gets messy. Butter or olive oil won't make a difference in that.
1: It's the emulsifying action of the butter proteins that keeps your sauce smooth, and prevents it separating in oil and water layers.