Credit: Stephen Jackson
Serves 4-6
Ingredients:
300g unsalted butter
15g chives, very finely chopped
30g curly parsley, stems removed and very finely chopped
1 x 100g pack Traditional Cure Smoked Trout, finely chopped
The grated zest of half a lemon
2 tsps capers, rinsed and dried, then chopped roughly
Sea salt and freshly-ground black pepper
Method:
Select two bowls, one larger than the other, and fill the larger bowl with iced water. This helps to speed up the whipping process. In a pan, over gentle heat, slowly melt the butter, and then turn up the heat. Here’s where you need to concentrate fully, as the toasting process happens pretty rapidly. The butter will start to bubble at first – big oily bubbles, but will soon start to sizzle a little and the bubbles reduce in size. Keep stirring, and don’t get distracted. After a minute or so, the butter will start to darken, and you’ll detect a wonderful hazelnut-y aroma. Keep going for a further 30 seconds or so, just being careful not to burn the solids at the bottom of the pan – they should be a deep nut brown. Immediately pour the foaming butter and toasted solids into the smaller bowl. Allow it to cool for several minutes, then set into the iced water.
Slowly begin whisking the butter. As it cools, it will begin to go pale and thicken. You’re after a nice heavily-whipped cream texture. Remove the bowl from the ice, and add the other ingredients, along with salt to taste and a good few grinds of pepper. Carefully fold together until the ingredients are fully distributed in the butter. Set a rectangle of clingfilm on a flat surface, and top it with another the same size. This will make for a more sturdy ‘sausage’ when you roll the butter up.
Spoon the butter along the clingfilm, about two-thirds of the way down towards you, and leaving several inches free on either side. The butter should be in a nice neat row, quite high and with no discernible gaps. Slowly lift the edge of the clingfilm nearest to you, and carefully roll the butter all the way to the top. Then, twist the clingfilm at both ends, forming a neat cylindrical sausage of butter.
Roll it a little more to make it quite tight at either end, and set it on a flat surface in the fridge until set. At this point you can also freeze the butter sausage for future use. When required, simply ‘peel’ the sausage and cut off as many slices as required, and enjoy the full rich flavours on whatever takes your fancy.
