Compound butters are a great way to sneak more flavor into your cooking and they also provide a way to preserve short-lived seasonal flavors. Spring flavors are always favorites, but the window of opportunity is often as short as only one or two weeks. If you don’t take advantage of that window, it will be a whole year before you get to taste those flavors again.
Ramp butter is extremely versatile. Use it in any way you would use butter and onion or garlic. Instead of garlic bread, you could try warm toasty ramp bread. I love to use ramp butter to make my morning eggs…. even better if I had a fresh morel or two to throw in the pan (no such luck this year).
Ramp Compound Butter
1/2 pound butter, softened to room temperature
Baker’s dozen cleaned ramps, or approximately 6 ounces
Zest from 1/2 lemon or lime
1 to 2 tablespoons fresh lemon or lime juice
Place butter in bowl, set aside. Blanch ramps in boiling water for about 30 seconds, then remove to an ice water bath to stop the cooking. Blanching the ramps will help them retain a bright green color when you freeze the finished butter.
Squeeze as much water out of the ramps as possible and then chop them up. I like to chop the bulb part finely, and the greens a little on the coarse side so I get a nice pattern in the butter when I slice it off the roll.
Add the chopped ramps, zest, and lemon or lime juice to the butter and blend thoroughly with a spoon or spatula.
On a piece of parchment paper, form the butter into a long log. Roll the butter tightly in the parchment paper and twist both ends. Store your butter rolls in the freezer until ready for use.
Related Posts
May 10, 2011 Ramp It Up!! Part 1 – Pickled Ramps
May 14, 2011 Ramp It Up!! Part 3 – Dirty Ramp Martini
March 31, 2013 Waiting For Spring
March 21, 2012 Zesty Tomato Garlic Croutons
July 12, 2010 Prickly Ash, Red Clover, and Jewelweed
Hi there!
My name is Rebecca and I’m one of the Editors at HuffPost Taste. I’m working on a roundup of some of our favorite ramp recipes, and would love to feature a photo from this lovely post, pending your permission. We’ll link back to your original post for the recipe.
Would you mind just letting me know whether you’d like us to credit the photo to your name or your blog’s name?
Thanks very much!
– Rebecca
Hi Rebecca! I shot you a quick email, but thought it would be a good idea to reply here, just in case you don’t get the email. Feel free to use the photo, and credit it to Birdworms & Buttermilk. I can’t wait to see your roundup!
Rebekah
[…] but they didn’t. They did have their own butter, which I used for this recipe. Thanks for Birdworms and Buttermilk for this great idea. I think this would be a great base for sautéing some of the asparagus I got […]
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