Garlic Butter…With A Spicy Kick!

This is a great compound butter recipe for those that like spicy food and a lot of garlic. Making compound butters in advanced and using some in recipes is an easy way to give your dishes great flavor and depth.

This is an amazing butter that will add some excitement…and heat to your cooking. Since all the ingredients are cooked in the butter already, this is a finishing butter. Meaning you toss it in with some cooked sautéed vegetables off the heat just before serving, toss into cooked pasta, cut into a medallion for chicken, pork, steaks, fish, and as a butter for finishing a sauce. This butter can burn quickly, so avoid high heat. It is to be added off heat or used on very low heat.

Ingredients:

1 lb butter, unsalted

1 habanero

3 jalapeños

1 tsp cumin

1 tsp white wine vinegar

1 head garlic

1 tsp salt

1/2 tsp black pepper, freshly ground

Tools needed:

Tin foil

Baking sheet

Sharp knife

Rubber gloves

Mixing bowl

Rubber spatula

Parchment paper

How to make it:

You can use any pepper type you want. Go for ghost peppers for a real kick!

***Make sure to wear gloves when handling hot peppers***

Add some paprika and chili powder to this for some nice color and flavor.

First, make the roasted garlic since it takes the longest. Heat the oven to 350 f. While the garlic and peppers are getting cooked, it’s a good idea to remove the butter from the refrigerator to get softened. Next, cut top off garlic head, drizzle with oil and season with salt and pepper. Wrap the garlic in a square of foil and place on a glass dish. I use roasted garlic for a lot of things so I make 4-5 at a time. Garlic takes about 1 hour to an hour and a half for the cloves to be soft and lightly browned. The great thing about roasted garlic is that it losses that hotness to it. It gets slightly sweet with a nice deep garlic flavor. Once the garlic is done, remove from oven and let cool to room temperature. While the garlic is going, get the peppers ready to get into the oven as well. Drizzle oil on peppers, season with pinch salt and pepper. Let the peppers go for 30-45 minutes or until soft. Keep an eye on the peppers as the habaneros may be done 10 minutes before the jalapeños. Let the cooked peppers also cool to room temperature.

Rough chopping the ingredients gives the butter a good texture and visual appeal.

Next, remove the garlic from the cloves and place in a mixing bowl. Using a fork, mash up the garlic until it is all broken up. Cut the peppers in half, remove the seeds and rough chop. Add to the bowl with the garlic. Add a good pinch salt, pepper, add the cumin, vinegar and butter. Using the fork again, mash the ingredients together until fully incorporated.

This has such great colors and flavor with a decent spicy kick.

Place the butter onto a sheet of parchment paper and roll it into a log shape. Refrigerate until it fully stiffens up. When I need to use some, I unroll it from the parchment paper, cut off a slice and add it to whatever it is I’m cooking. This makes for a great garlic butter for garlic bread, tossed in pasta, topped on a steak or chicken. I even used some while scrambling some eggs, super tasty! This will stay good for 2 weeks if kept in the refrigerator. You can also freeze it. up to 6 months. Just make sure to place the butter once rolled in the parchment paper into a zip top bag.

Enjoy!

Logan