Whipped Miso Butter: great on almost everything!

We had miso butter on good bread as part of selection of fancy butters at restaurant Tartaria: it was delicious, a little exotic, but still familiar. We whipped some up recently and found it was really tasty on just about anything: beans, steak, toast, potatoes, and as an ingredient in other dishes instead of plain butter. It's dead simple to make.

Recipes we've found tend to use 5:1 or 4:1 butter to miso, but I wanted to make the salty umami of the miso a little more forward, so I'm bumping it to 3:1; adjust according to your taste. Some recipes add garlic, sriracha, olive oil, or other flavors, but keeping it minimal makes it more versatile.  Some recipes melt the butter then whip in the miso over an ice bath, but that's needlessly fussy; this just takes a little planning ahead to soften the butter. You can use whatever style of Miso you prefer; we used a white miso for this because it's what we had from a local Asian market.

The photos show us using a mini food processor but I've switched to using a whisk attachment on a stick blender as it's easier. We have a little mini food processor attachment for our stick blender and it works well for this quantity. If you have a large processor, you'll probably need to scale up the recipe. If you have neither, a single beater on an electric mixer would probably work too.  If you're trapped on a desert island, you could just smear it together with a fork once the Miso and Butter are soft enough.

150 g Butter
 50 g Miso Paste

Cut the butter into cubes directly into the bowl of a mini food processor while measuring.
Likewise, measure the Miso into the same processor bowl.
Let the butter soften for 30 minutes or more at room temperature so it's easy to mix.
Whiz it, whiz it good, scooping down occasionally until it's uniform and smooth.
Store in a covered container, or wrap in parchment into a log shape, then refrigerate.

This amount only lasted a week in our house!

This firms up rather solid in the fridge; we may try adding a bit of Olive Oil so it's more spreadable.

Salsa Crujiente de Chile: Spanish "chili crisp" sauce

We made a variation of Laoganma’s Chinese Chili Crisp sauce in Arlington, guided by Serious Eats (watch the video): it was excellent -- intense, rich, crunchy, very fiery, and had the "Málà" numbing affect from the Szechuan chilis. Now that we're living in Barcelona, I wanted to make a variation using local flavors: tasty chilis that aren't so hot, garlic (of course!), pimenton, olive oil, etc. I'm taking inspiration from that recipe, plus The Kitchn's (which references Chinese ingredients by proper names), and this Guide to Herbs and Spices in Spain. 

This turned out well: plenty of crunch, rich flavors, and mild enough you can put it on anything; I could just pile it onto plain rice or couscous and eat it for dinner. 

The chilis, olive oil, and almonds here are obvious Spanish substitutions; the ginger and fennel are more in line with the original, and should be amicable flavors. I have no intention to be authentic, only zesty and crunchy! 

Served on fried egg on top of boniato (sweet potato)

After deseeding and grinding the chilis, it's easier to measure the other mostly-dry ingredients directly into the bowl, rather than using a dozen mis-en-place dishes. A mandolin will speed slicing the Shallots, Fennel, and Garlic thinly and consistently. After slicing the Shallots and starting them frying, you can prep the Fennel, then Garlic while the previous one fries.

Makes about 500 ml

 25 g      Chili Choriceros

 25 g      Chili Ñora/Nyora

0.5 g      Chili Cayenne (Pimienta Cayena, 30-50K Scoville)[5 small]

 25 g      Almonds, sliced (use good quality)

 15 g      Ginger, fresh, sliced into thin match sticks

  1 g      Anise seed

  6 g      Dried mushroom powder (grind dried mushrooms into powder)

 10 g      Sugar

 15 g      Coarse Salt

  1 g      Black Pepper

 12 g      Pimenton

  8 g      White Sesame Seeds

  1 g      Rosemary, minced

  1 whole  Orange Zest, chopped fine or coarse grate

1/2 stick  Cinnamon, whole [1 g]

  1 whole  Bay Leaf, whole

300 g      Olive Oil (doesn't need to be extra virgin)

100 g      Shallots, sliced 1mm thick

100 g      Fennel, sliced 1 mm thick

 50 g      Garlic, sliced 1 mm thick [8 clove]

Mise en place isn't necessary

Deseed the Chilis by slitting and shaking out seeds (gloves are a good idea here); discard the seeds.

Grind the chilis in a spice grinder (in batches) until about 2-4 mm chili-flake sized, not a powder.

Place in heatproof bowl large enough to accommodate boiling oil, at least 2 Liter.

Add the other (mostly dry) spices and herbs: Almonds, Ginger, Anise Seeds, Mushroom Powder, Sugar, Salt, Black Pepper, Pimenton, Sesame Seeds, Rosemary, Orange Zest, Cinnamon, and Bay Leaves.

De-seeded chilis, herbs, spices wait for hot oil

Now for the crunchy bits!

Make sure the Shallots, Fennel, and Garlic are fried until fully crisp to remove all water; they should crisp up once they are removed from the oil for a minute.

Set a fine-mesh strainer over a 1 L heatproof bowl.

Add Olive Oil to a 2 L saucepan.

Add Shallots and cook over high heat until they are light golden brown, about 15 minutes; strain and retain; return oil to pot.

Add Fennel and repeat the process; it may take a bit longer to remove the water from the Fennel.

Add Garlic, cook over medium-low heat, stirring constantly until barely golden brown; strain, retain, return oil to pot. 

Reserve the crunchy fried Shallots, Fennel, and Garlic.

Heat the flavored Oil to 190C (375F).

Pour into the large heat-proof bowl containing the Chilis, spices, herbs and other seasonings; it will bubble up ferociously!

Stir well so the hot oil cooks everything evenly. 

If you think everything isn't quite browned enough, you can put it back on the fire (a metal bowl can go directly on an induction burner) but be careful not to burn things. 

Let cool about 30 minutes.

Remove the Cinnamon stick and Bay Leaf. 

Mix in fried Shallots, Fennel, and Garlic.

Pour into jars and store in fridge; it should last at least 3 months.

Served on plain white rice, makes for a zesty side dish

2024-08-26 Tweaks

I've tweaked this over time, removing duplicative lemon, etc.

Today I've doubled the Rosemary to 2 grams, bumped the Almonds from 25 to 30 g, and added 75 g of Leek (sliced by hand, they were too soft for the mandolin). I had to bump up the Oil from 300 to 350g.