[Amitaabh]

A particular recipe asks to put a pound of butter in water, bring the water to a boil and let it simmer. Butter's smoke point is around 150 Celsius and water boils at 100 Celsius. The specific heat of water is 4.19 kJ/kg oC and the specific heat of butter is 1.26  kJ/kg oC. Since the specific heat of water is about 3 times that of butter wont the butter start to smoke by the time the water gets heated to 100 Celsius?

[Arkcon]

No.  For a very obvious reason, that has nothing to do with specific heat.  Can you figure it out for yourself?  Consider this:  If you were fractionally distilling a mixture of water and butter, what would happen?

[Vidya]

A particular recipe asks to put a pound of butter in water, bring the water to a boil and let it simmer. Butter's smoke point is around 150 Celsius and water boils at 100 Celsius. The specific heat of water is 4.19 kJ/kg oC and the specific heat of butter is 1.26  kJ/kg oC. Since the specific heat of water is about 3 times that of butter wont the butter start to smoke by the time the water gets heated to 100 Celsius?

Butter needs energy to change its state also and it needs energy to get converted smoke.When you add all these then may be it falls above the amount of heat required to boil water.