I’ve smoked a lot of things (I know that sounds bad, but bear with me) – everything from the decadent to seemingly the impossible, but sometimes it’s amazing what the most simple of ingredients can yield. In this case, smoked butter. You might wonder how that’s even possible but with the cold smoker frankly it’s just been a-maze-n what has become an option, including smoked dairy.
So recently when we were cold smoking, we threw in a couple cubes of butter. I don’t even remember if it was my idea or my husband’s – since we got this thing, we are constantly batting ideas back and forth about what we’ll try next – but one thing is for sure, we hit a home run with this one.
See each Sunday night we watch TV – usually Top Chef – and have popcorn and a bottle of wine for our dinner. Simple yet something we look forward to end our weekend. We play around with the seasoning or maybe the oil in which to pop (coconut oil or bacon grease are both highly recommended) but nothing has hit it out of the park like the smoked butter. Melted and poured over the hot popcorn and topped with just a sprinkling of kosher salt. I saw a side of my husband that night – usually a very sharing kind of guy – that I hadn’t seen before. And it wasn’t pretty.
So, now I look at every recipe that calls for butter with new eyes… considering how smoked butter might work into the recipe. Yep… I see great things to come.