Herb & Garlic Butter

I promised a few recipes as a follow-up to my pantry's essential four and seeing that I haven't posted a recipe in ages, I thought it was time to pull something out from my back log to update this poor, neglected space! There's actually a post about lemon cake somewhere in my drafts but that shall be for another time. I was food-blog surfing when I chanced upon umami butter on Delicious:Days and remembered I had wanted to do a post on herb and garlic butter.

It all started with a barbecue last year around this time. (So you see how long I've been wanting to do this post now) Garlic bread is *almost* a must-have at our barbecues but is just too expensive to buy and tastes much better when homemade. I remembered seeing a recipe for herb butter on Simply Recipes and thought I would give it a try. As usual, I'm never one to follow recipes or really calculate the exact measurements of what I use, I just threw things I pulled out of my fridge and mixed them together. Judging from the "mmmmmm"-s I had when the garlic bread was served, I would consider my random blending a success. But it could also be the slow-roasted garlic which I promised was TONS better than normal garlic bread but nobody actually believed. I think it was both.

Wrapped in plastic and kept in the fridge, this herb butter could serve a million purposes, well, maybe at least 4: a spread on toasted bread, for baking salmon, corn-on-the-cob or baked potatoes and a spaghetti that I cooked with almost the same ingredients and more.

Herb Butter

125g butter, room temperature
1 single-clove garlic or about 5 small cloves, skins removed
1 bunch fresh coriander (cilantro)
1 chili padi (bird's eye chili), seeds removed
Juice and zest of 1 lime (you can also use half a lemon)
Pinch of salt

- Finely chop garlic, coriander and chili padi. For the coriander, I use both the leaves and the stems and should come up to about 2 tbsp. Chili padi is an extra spicy chili commonly available in Southeast Asia. You can also use normal, large-sized chili that is less spicy if you prefer.
- In a bowl, mix well the chopped herbs, lime zest and juice, butter and salt. It might take some time for the butter to come together due to the addition of lime juice.
- To store, wrap the butter in plastic wrap into the shape of a log and refrigerate.