The chef’s secret: smoked butter

Rosah van Schendelen reached the final of MasterChef Netherlands several years ago and currently works as head chef at A Beautiful Mess restaurant in Amsterdam’s Bijlmer Bajes. In The chef’s secret, Rosah explains how you can apply a high-end cooking technique in your own kitchen. This week: baguette with smoked butter, made from homemade butter.

Yes, I absolutely love butter. I think there’s something magical about it. When you eat it, you only want more. A bit like the familiar story about all those pounds going in through our mouths. That a warm piece of baguette, preferably with as much crust as possible, spread with salted butter, goes straight to my backside after a self-control contest that was lost before it even began. Well, I really couldn’t care less. As I said, I absolutely love it.

Of course, you can also make countless types of herb butter. Traditionally, with fresh herbs such as tarragon, chervil, parsley and chives. You can also salt the butter in various ways, for example with anchovies, capers, olives or, as they do in Japan, sea urchin. There are also butters in every color of the rainbow, colored with beetroot, tomato, squid ink and various curry pastes. I like to make smoked butter. And then completely from scratch.

Method

1. Mix the cream with the buttermilk and leave the mixture outside the refrigerator for two days. The lactic acid bacteria in the buttermilk will sour the cream. This soured cream is also known as crème fraîche. So now you know how to make that too.
2. Beat the soured cream with a mixer for 10 to 12 minutes to turn it into butter. You can also do this by hand, but using a machine really is much easier. After a while, the fat separates from the liquid and pieces of butter form, floating in buttermilk. When you see this, it’s time to strain the butter.
3. For this, take a fine sieve and line it with cheesecloth or a tea towel. Pour the butter and buttermilk into the cloth and tie the corners together. Using a twisting motion, squeeze all the remaining buttermilk out of the butter. This is important because buttermilk has a shorter shelf life than butter. You don’t want the butter to spoil because of any buttermilk left behind. If you really want to do this properly, knead the butter with cold water until the water runs clear. Finally, mix the butter with coarse salt to taste and let it firm up in the refrigerator.

Smoking butter

1. Smoking butter—and many other ingredients, for that matter—is very easy to do at home in your own kitchen. I’m very happy with my Camerons smoker, because it’s affordable and works like a charm. But there are so many smokers in different sizes and price ranges—and don’t forget, St Nicholas is almost here. If you don’t have a smoker but still want to get started, improvise with a sealed metal container that is heat-resistant.
2. Spread a thin layer of smoking dust over the bottom and close the smoker.
3. Place it over low heat so that the smoking dust slowly begins to smolder. Remove the smoker from the heat as soon as it is filled with smoke. Then quickly place the butter in the smoker, without letting too much smoke escape. Let it infuse for several minutes until it has reached your desired smoky flavor.
4. Then roll the butter into a neat log using plastic wrap and chill it in the refrigerator. Serve it with a beautiful piece of warm baguette and a nice glass of red wine. Heavenly, right?