Roasted Garlic Herbed Truffle Butter

Yesterday my husband took it upon himself to start cleaning out the fridge – a very rare occurrence.  Everything inside was placed on the kitchen counter and dining table.  Because one of my “hot buttons” is when people throw away food, especially Rob, I appreciated the fact he asked if I wanted him to either keep or throw away food stored in Tupperware-type containers – another rare occurrence.  Most of the time, perfectly good food disappears because he throws it out not knowing I was saving it for a later time. Initially I was suspicious of his impromptu cleaning – we both loathe cleaning out the fridge.  Whatever motivated him to do this, I didn’t care.  Instead,  I quickly remained quiet as I began to cook dinner and would answer him with a simple yes or no, expecting at some point for him to confess some grave sin which he would find redemption through interfacing with funky growth.  As I waited for this interaction with him to happen, an hour into it I realized he was cleaning for the sake of cleaning.  Whew.

Some of the containers contained food blanketed with nasty greenish blue mold.  I could smell it from 6 feet away as he opened a few of those over the sink.  With one of the containers he started dry heaving because it invaded his senses in a really bad way.

When he picked up a container of roasted garlic (I have a tutorial here on How to Roast Garlic) I quickly grabbed it from him as a knee-jerk reaction.  Worried he would throw it away before I had a chance to tell him not to, I calmly told him that I would take care of it.

Because of some fresh parsley I had and the fact it was St. Patrick’s Day (Rob is 1/4 Irish, which would make my kids 1/8), I thought it would be delicious to use some roasted garlic to make a roasted garlic butter compound.  But not just any garlic butter, I wanted to show my appreciation to Rob by making it even more special.  So I threw in the herbs, butter, and garlic in my food processor.  Inspired by the black truffle salt in my cupboard, I also added about 3/4 teaspoon of it to make it really gourmet.  I knew this butter would go perfect with the Irish soda bread I was baking in the oven.

Having just removed the warm bread from the oven, we immediately cut into the loaf as steam released with every pull of the knife.  The kids all gathered around the table waiting for a slice.  Slathering about a teaspoon of the herbed butter onto each warm piece, I delighted in seeing the small bits of garlic and parsley rest on top of the buttered bread.  Mmmmm, so good.

For dinner I grilled nice sized London Broil to a beautiful medium rare.  Slicing it thinly, I topped each one with some of the compound butter I had just made.  The family raved about it and it was a great way to finish the steak off.

A couple things about this butter.  Use unsalted butter.  Think about it, you’re adding salt to it.  Start with a clean base and add. If you’re sensitive to sodium, start with 1/4 teaspoon.  The truffle flavor is very subtle in this butter.  However, you could always add more salt or feel free to use truffle oil.  Store any leftover butter in a sealed container.  If you’re entertaining anytime soon, you could always scoop beautiful mounds of the butter and plate it like restaurants do.  This butter would make a great addition to your upcoming Easter meal.  Slather it on bread, meats, or vegetables.  I can only imagine how good it would be on a mound of mashed potatoes.

Enjoy!