Yes, this is indeed a recipe for a flavoured butter but I’m not about to get you churning your own, don’t panic.
Why bother with a flavoured butter, you ask?
If you’ve ever had a rosemary butter slathered and gooey on a hot steak or some fresh pasta simply tossed up sage butter then you wouldn’t be asking that question.
I first made my own butter sauce when I was studying in Florence, whereby I made a butter sauce by just slightly burning a stick of butter in a pan and tossing in some fresh sage leaves.
This was then used to coat some fresh pasta, so that the glossy sage butter hugged on to the pasta strands so snugly that every mouthful was an experience.
So I’ve decided to pimp the process slightly.
This recipe uses up some leftover leeks I had at the bottom of the fridge and I decided to make it as a fresh stick as opposed to a melting sauce so that I can call upon it whenever the mood takes me.
Slathered on fresh bread for a sandwich, melted into a pasta dish or brushed over pastry – this butter is guaranteed to enhance every dining experience where butter is a necessity.
Preheat the oven to 180c.
Halve 2 leeks and place them on a baking tray. Cover them in a little olive oil and bake for roughly 15 minutes until they become slightly charred and glossy.
Take them out of the oven to cool.
In a bowl, soften 200g of unsalted butter with a spoon.
Chop up the leeks as small as possible and allow to cool. They will cool quicker if you chop them as small and possible and then spread them out over the chopping board.
You don’t want them warm because this will melt the butter and you don’t want this. Butter never resets the way you want it to!
Once the leeks are cold, drop them into the butter. Add a pinch of sea salt and some finely chopped up rosemary. Stir everything together – a rubber spatula is best for this.
Here you could spoon the butter into a Tupperware box and put in the fridge but I keep mine in some baking paper which I roll up like a sausage and tie at both ends. Reason for this is that it’s easier to slice pound size coins of butter when I need it from the fridge instead of letting it soften and scrape with a knife!
Your call though.
MIKEY AND THE KITCHEN. 