Cultured butter? It’s more than just a companion to the opera

“Butter makes it better,” declared the famous 1960s advertising slogan. In my many years of eating butter, however, we’ve never had it so good. Because what we have now is a better butter.

It’s better because it’s cultured, which means you can discuss the latest art exhibitions and classical music concerts with it. No, let me rephrase that. It’s better because the cream is treated with cultures, such as lactobacillus, in the same manner as yoghurt, which intensify its flavour and aroma. Cultured butter is richer and creamier than non-cultured butter, and has a lightly sour twang that makes it oh-so-moreish.

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In the current restaurant scene, the rule is that where there is sourdough bread, there will be cultured butter. Chefs love cultured butter because chefs just love doing more things to food than they have to (I’m guessing that’s their job). Ever since Tetsuya Wakuda sent out bread rolls with whippy, truffle-infused butter, chefs have made butter their opening statement of intent. Hence the butter at Firedoor in Sydney’s Surry Hills is wreathed with wood-smoke – as you will be, too, at the end of the night. The chicken and anchovy butter from chef Clayton Wells at Mod. Dining, in the glassy heart of the new Sydney Modern art gallery, is so rich with umami it’s like slathering chicken gravy on your bread.

At Melbourne’s Aru, Khanh Nguyen’s typically intriguing “forbidden rice” sourdough, sticky with palm sugar, comes with a smoked, cultured butter, while Rosheen Kaul at Brunswick East’s Etta caramelises butter until it’s toasty and nutty, then smokes it over red-gum and sends it out with smoked salt. And how do you feel about butter that’s a scary black? At Bangalay Dining on NSW’s South Coast, Simon Evans presents olive oil focaccia with a whipped black garlic butter that has an otherworldly sweetness.

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You can do all this at home as well, with cultured butter from Victoria’s Lard Ass (loving the name), Gippsland Jersey and St David Dairy, Tasmania’s Meander Valley and the widely available Pepe Saya and CopperTree Farms from NSW. Do a blind taste test on toast against your normal, everyday butter and see what you think. Then pop some on your boiled egg, whip it into your mashed potato or melt it over your grilled fish, and tell me that a better butter doesn’t make it even better.

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