Wednesday, 16 February 2011

I don't know much butter know I love you



Winter is a difficult time of year to get excited about, not least in the cooking department. After months of cooking root veg, who can blame you if your greatest culinary desire is the quick fix of a salad. Root vegetables (the humble carrot aside) are not really known for their speed of delivery. Its a strange man who enjoys chomping on some raw turnip.

They are also sometimes pretty time consuming to prepare. Whilst The Seasonal Beets thoroughly recommend keeping skins on where possible (for we all know that's where the best nutrition is stored) there are times when that is just not possible. My dog loves turnip skin: I am less enamoured by its woody texture.

On top of that whilst root vegetables are filled with nutrition and can be sweet as sugar, the stereotypical varieties we can easily access do lack a certain variation in flavour (yes bothersome friend turnip I'm referring to you again).

And yet root vegetables are cheap, nutritious and very seasonal so we should definitely be eating them in plentiful supply. How can we fix this tricky conundrum? The answer my friends is butter.

"Is there anything better than butter? Think it over, any time you taste something that's delicious beyond imagining and you say 'what's in this?' the answer is always going to be butter. The day there is a meteorite rushing toward Earth and we have thirty days to live, I am going to spend it eating butter. Here is my final word on the subject, you can never have too much butter." Julie Powell, Julie and Julia.

Whilst butter alone is wonderful, its magical taste enhancing capabilities can be heightened by the addition of a few key ingredients. Flavoured butter should be a staple in any tasty kitchen. It can be added to baked potatoes; mashed vegetables, boiled vegetables, oven roasted vegetables, fry your vegetables in it or just spread on a piece of crusty toast. The possibilities are for flavoured butter are endless and its so easy to make.

  • Take 1 packet of unsalted butter and leave it out of the fridge to soften.
  • Then get out the biceps and your spatula and start beating the butter until it becomes soft and pliable (or use a foodmixer...).
  • Add your ingredients and whip into a frenzy until all incorporated.
  • Leave to stand for 30 minutes and then place it in the fridge to harden.
  • Once hard roll into a sausage shape and wrap in baking parchment (like a christmas cracker)
  • This can then be stored in the freezer. Just cut away what you need when you need it.

Recipes for flavoured butter

Roasted Garlic Butter (excellent in mash)

1 packet of butter
1 large head of garlic
1/4 tsp salt

Cut the garlic in half and roast the garlic in the oven until soft. Squidge out the garlic, let it cool and add to your butter.

Herby Butter
(the world is your oyster here, I like rosemary and thyme together but tarragon is also very nice, especially on mushrooms! Check out our recipe booklets for other good herb/veg combos)

1 packet of butter
1 handful of freshly chopped herbs
1/2 tsp salt


Chilli Butter
(melt and use to make Kale Chips!)

1 packet of butter
A zest of half a lemon
1 tbsp of dried chilli flakes
1/4 tsp salt

Loads more recipes can be found on the BBC Good Food website and at The Nibble but look out for more flavoured butters on this blog too!





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