Recipe: Cheddar Garlic and Shallot Butter

This recipe for Cheddar Garlic and Shallot Butter came about as I was experimenting in the kitchen making various flavored butters...

I recently came across one of Giada De Laurentiis’s recipes that toasted ciabatta bread with a cheddar cheese flavored butter … the butter used scallions and garlic… and sounded really good… very similar to a cream cheese spread I make… it also had more butter used in the recipe to the other ingredients than I thought I wanted… it wasn’t exactly what I had in mind… so I experimented.

I did like her idea of using ciabatta bread… I thought the bread was a wonderful choice.. with the big holes in the bread… I thought the butter would melt wonderfully into it… and it did.

Scallions and onions have a pretty potent flavor… and I wanted a light oniony flavor to match a light garlic and cheddar flavor… so I decided to use shallots…. it was a perfect choice.

TIPS

Dice the shallot and garlic clove into tiny pieces… I did this manually.. I didn’t want to over process them so I didn’t use the mini chopper to prepare them.

Use sharp cheddar.. otherwise the cheddar flavor will be over powered by the shallot and garlic.

Use unsalted butter so you can control how much salt to add… if you use salted butter..omit the salt in the recipe.

The butter was soft… but not runny… I cut the stick of butter into smaller pieces.. about 2 tablespoons each before putting it in the mini chopper.

I only pulsed the chopper a few times… removed the lid and scraped the sides and pulsed two more times… . don’t over process this or you will end up with mush.

This butter can be used on any bread… but I highly recommend you use it on ciabatta bread…







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Recipe: Cheddar Garlic and Shallot Butter

All you need:

1 stick (8 tablespoons) unsalted butter, softened and cut into 4 pieces
1 large shallot, finely diced
1 large garlic clove, finely diced
¼ cup sharp cheddar cheese, finely shredded
3 turns on the pepper mill
Salt to taste

All you need to do:

Add all the ingredients into a mini chopper.

Pulse a few times then scrape the sides and pulse 2 more times.

Use immediately and refrigerate any leftovers.