dill & caper compound butter

A thing about me is every big grocery trip (opposed to small last minute outings), I try to get an ingredient or two that is new to me and then figure out what to do with them later. There are misses to be sure but sometimes i find some gems that open up whole new paths for me. Capers are one of the latter. I recently bought a Costco jar of capers while not really knowing what they were. So I did some investigating, and turns out capers are actually flower buds from a certain bush that are picked before they can bloom and then pickled or dried. They are delicious. Some things I’ve tried them in so far: puttanesca, on bagels with cream cheese and lox, and chicken piccata. My favorite use of capers so far has been the compound butter. It’s super easy to make and packs a punch of flavor.

First decide how much butter you want to make. I used two sticks of unsalted butter, set out to soften. Unsalted butter because the capers themselves are pretty salty. You don’t absolutely need to soften the butter, but it’s much easier to mix if you do. Let it sit for half an hour or so. While the butter is softening, grab a bunch of dill, rinse and chop somewhat finely. Once the butter is soft, add it to a metal bowl and add the dill and a tablespoon of capers. Figure on using half a tablespoon of capers per stick of butter, more or less to your taste. Take a fork and mix it all together until the dill and capers are distributed throughout the butter. Set a piece of plastic wrap on the counter and scoop the butter into the middle. Using the plastic wrap, roll the mixture into a log. We want a log shape because it’s easy to slice off a round off it and then wrap it back up. You could just as easily scoop it into an old butter container or tupperware that you have lying around. Once you’ve got the butter where you want it, refrigerate or freeze. It will keep for a long time in either.

I like to spread the caper butter on toast (sourdough) in the morning and then top with a poached egg and some pepper. That’s also good with hard boiled eggs, soft scrambled, hard fried, etc.. any egg would be delicious. I like poached. It’s also good as a replacement for cream cheese with bagels and smoked fish, or on some crusty bread with pasta. You could add it to chicken roasting in a pan. The possibilities are practically endless, and probably all delicious. Like this butter.