Butter burns when pan searing mahi mahi I have been trying to cook some new things, and I bought myself a good allclad skillet. I've tried pan searing fish a few times, using some hipster techniques I saw on YouTube. 

I heat the pan pretty high, add in some peanut oil, and add the fish (already seasoned on both sides)

I leave it for a few minutes (med high heat) and then flip it. At that point, I added in a tab of butter, a crushed garlic clove, and some fresh herbs. As the butter melted I basted the fish. 

The thing was, at that point the butter got really dark. Should I have lowered the heat, or done it more toward the end? 

In this case since the fish filet was pretty thick I had the heat lower then when I cooked a bass filet, but had the same basic issue. 

video

thanks.
Use a very high heat oil such as peanut or avocado. These oils have a much higher working temperature than does butter. Think about it. Do you want seared Ahi or do you want smoking butter. By not using butter, and using a high heat oil, you get the food that you want - seared Ahi