| Roasted Garlic Butter |
With all that gorgeous garlic cured and waiting to be enjoyed, I love to find new ways to use it and to preserve some of it, too. Decadent homemade garlic butter is a favorite, and it’s a fun and simple summer project to make a batch or two. It freezes well, but it doesn’t usually last long enough to freeze. We are starting from scratch here…heavy cream, lots of garlic, Kosher salt and a little hint of cheese, but you can take a shortcut and use softened butter if you like. However, if you have never tasted homemade butter, I encourage you to give it a try. The taste and texture is outstanding. I roasted the garlic first to bring out its natural sweetness and calm the fiery fresh garlic down a bit.
Ingredients
- 1 cup butter softened or 2 cups heavy cream to make butter (instructions to make butter below)
- 1 tablespoon or more minced roasted garlic (instructions to roast below)
- 1/4 cup grated aged Parmesan cheese
- 1 tablespoon Kosher salt
- 1 teaspoon Italian seasoning or garden herbs
- 1/2 teaspoon ground black pepper
- 1/4 teaspoon Cayenne pepper optional, but good!
Instructions
- To roast the garlic: Cut off the top 1/2 inch of a head of garlic and drizzle it with olive oil. Wrap tightly in foil and roast at 400 degrees for about a half hour until the cloves are soft and popping out of the top of the garlic skins. Freshly harvested garlic may take 5-10 minutes longer to roast. Let cool to room temperature. Refrigerate, or continue recipe.
- To make butter from heavy cream: Pour cold cream cream into food processor, and process until buttermilk separates from solids. Strain buttermilk from solids. Rinse solids with ice cold water once or twice, and drain again, pressing the solids with a spoon to release as much buttermilk as possible. Discard liquid (or feed it to your chickens!). Refrigerate the butter until ready to use, or continue with the recipe.
- Mix all recipe ingredients together in the food processor bowl, and pulse a couple of times to blend. Slather it on bread and broil. Melt it on grilled steaks. Drizzle it on steamed vegetables. Use it as a dip for fresh lobster or crab. Be humble when accepting compliments.
Tried this recipe?Let us know how it was!