A couple of weeks ago, the boy and I attended a “Cooking for Two” class at L’Academie de Cuisine. I’ll be posting more on that later, but first, here’s the most important thing we learned; the highest and best use of your freezer….
Compound butter. It’s butter, bacon, garlic, shallots, and parmesan cheese, all mixed together. You can whip up a batch in ten minutes, then you stick it in the freezer and cut off hunks of it for literally whatever you want. So far I have had it on a baguette, and also mixed it with rosemary and stuffed it under the skin of a roasting chicken. The instructor at L’Academie also recommended we melt it and toss it in cooked pasta. I plan to never be without it again.
2 sticks softened, salted butter
At least half a cup of parmesan cheese
1 shallot, finely chopped
3 strips bacon, cooked until crisp and finely chopped
2 cloves garlic (use a press)
Mash it all up, then stick it all in a food processor if you like. I didn’t, and the texture was fine. Also, I didn’t use salted butter, so I had to toss some salt in later.
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13Nov
5 Responses
Alright – Compound butter is pretty much the best stuff ever made.
But I agree with you…and disagree with the recipe – never ever use salted butter if you can. I’ve got nothing against salt, but it’s not fat-soluable. That means that salt butter is actually diluted with a huge amount of water to keep the salt in solution. It can’t get as hot, it’s not as tasty, and there’s much less real volume there.
I say stick with unsalted and then add the salt yourself.
Ditto what Zoe said about using unsalted butter. Here’s something else you can do with it – make your compound butter as normal, but instead of just tossing it into the freezer, Let the butter get soft (note: that does NOT mean melted), and using a pastry bag, you can pipe it into different shapes. Let’s say you do a few rosettes – pipe the rosettes onto a sheet pan of sorts, freeze, and then put the rosettes into a bag. It’s an easy way to go gourmet, and you can toss one of those rosettes on top of a hot steak or something like that. It adds a whole new dimension to your cooking.
I never buy salted butter either. The salt will prevent you from knowing if the butter is starting to turn rancid, which unfortunately can happen before it gets to you.
Awesome. I’ve been exposed as a food fraud.
Heheh, not at all – salt butter would make it go faster, i’m just not a fan.