Tag: st. germain

St. Germain Butter

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St. Germain is like the Samuel L. Jackson of liqueurs – it’s in everything these days.  If you haven’t tasted it (or you’re militantly hetero and won’t admit to tasting it) it’s an Elderflower liqueur – sweet, floral and quite refreshing.  Last weekend I was making butter recipes from the cookbook Fat: An Appreciation of a Misunderstood Ingredient, with Recipes.  One of those recipes was for a rum butter, but I didn’t have any decent rum in the liquor cabinet.  So instead, I decided to combine butter with just a splash of St. Germain – the result was unexpectedly good.  So here’s the “recipe”, although it couldn’t get much simpler.

Makes: 1/2 cup better butter
Total kitchen time: 5 minutes

Shopping list:

  • 1 stick (1/2 cup) unsalted butter (best if homemade), at room temperature
  • 2 tsp. St. Germain
  • 1/4 tsp. fine sea salt
  1. Combine the butter and St. Germain in a small bowl using the back of a fork. 
  2. Add salt and stir to combine.  Add additional salt, to taste, if necessary.

So, next time you’re putting bread and butter on the table, consider making the party a little more interesting by getting your butter liquored up.  Your mouth will thank you.

5-Minute Dry Ice Elderflower Sorbet

Video Recipe

If you couldn’t tell, I’ve been slightly obsessed with molecular gastronomy (“modernist cuisine” if you’ve read the Nathan Myhrvold interview).  Unfortunately, I’m a long way off from having centrifuges, rotary evaporators and tanks of liquid nitrogen lying around my lab kitchen.  Luckily, some of the geekiest cooking techniques work very well with home kitchen substitutes, and dry ice sorbet is the perfect example.  Eric Rivera first introduced me to this technique during one of our periodic food experimentation meetings.  Depending on the sugar content of the sorbet base and the type of mixer attachment, you can produce anything from fluffy, soft, taffy-like sorbets like this one to desserts with the consistency of Dippin-Dots.  Last night I added lime zest, lime juice and a shot of tequila to the sorbet base, then topped the result with lime salt for the coldest, sweetest smoothest margarita sorbet you’ve ever tasted!

Note: Whenever you’re working with dry ice, WEAR THICK GLOVES. Having sensation in your appendages is a good thing.

Note Two: In the video, I say to bring the sorbet base to a boil.  Further testing has shown that’s really not necessary.  A simmer is usually sufficient for the sugar and water to be completely combined.

Sorbet on Foodista