ALL YEAR ROUND // Recipe makes about 800 g (1 lb 12 oz)

Vine-smoked butter

I really enjoy the fact that we make our own butter; it’s a very simple and satisfying process. At the end of each season we collect vine cuttings from our regional vineyards. We store and use them to smoke the cream for our butter. This gives a sense of connection to the wines we serve, and it appeals to my heart that it’s one of the first things customers experience at Biota. If you don’t have vine cuttings, use hay, birch or even fruit tree cuttings.

In many traditional dairies and homesteads, cream was often skimmed off several milkings over a couple of days and collected to make butter. The cream was, therefore, several days old and somewhat fermented by the time the butter-making process began. During fermentation, bacteria converts the milk sugars into lactic acid, causing the cream to sour naturally. The fermentation process produces additional aroma compounds, creating a wonderfully flavoured butter. Butter made from fermented cream is known as ‘cultured butter’.

SMOKED CREAM

2.2 litres (74 fl oz) cream

8 vine cuttings

Leave the cream out for about 5 hours to come up to room temperature and sour.

To build a smoker, take a deep tray and make a small fire in it, using two or three vine cuttings. Smother the cuttings with a thin flat tray on top, locking in all the smoke. Remove the flat tray and place the cream in a shallow bowl on a wire rack on the smothered cuttings. Put the thin tray on top again and leave to smoke for about 1 hour. Remove the cream from the smoker, add another couple of vine cuttings, allow the smoke to build up again and smoke the cream for another hour. Repeat the process once more, so the cream has been smoked for a total of 3 hours. Remove the bowl from the smoker and chill in the fridge.

BUTTER

Smoked cream (left)

20 g (³/₄ oz) salt

To make the butter, beat the smoked cream and salt until the fat solids separate from the buttermilk. As this happens, remove the fat solids from the bowl by hand. Place them in a piece of muslin (cheesecloth) or kitchen towel and hang overnight with a bowl underneath to collect the buttermilk that drips from the butter. (Make sure you keep the buttermilk for cooking the spent vegetables.)

Let the butter set for a couple of hours in the fridge before serving. You can store the butter for up to 1 month in the fridge.