Chefs are experimenting with flavoured butter, “enveloping herbs, spices, vegetables and meat into its golden folds”, says Clare Finney in The Guardian. The world’s first butter bar, Bella La Crema in Colorado, stocks bourbon butter, rosemary and sage butter, even chocolate butter. Tom Simmons serves leek butter at his restaurant in Tower Bridge and Selin Kiazim serves “addictive” butter with medjool dates, spiced black rice vinegar and sugar at Oklava in Shoreditch, east London. “The chef wants to express his individuality and the butter is their first port of call,” says Irish chef Robin Gill, whose smoked bone marrow butter is the “stuff of legend”.
Paris Hilton’s recipe for success
Paris Hilton may strike you as an unlikely chef, but her new cookery show, Cooking with Paris, came out this week on Netflix. It’s inspired by a YouTube video of her cooking lasagne with the help of a chihuahua in a Chanel apron, which racked up more than five million views last year. In the first episode “we see her in the supermarket in a hot pink diamanté Covid mask and hot pink ballgown”, says Ed Cumming in The Independent. She’s joined by childhood friend Kim Kardashian to make French toast and asks big questions such as “What’s a tong?”. There’s something endearing about watching the two women pretend to talk about cooking, “as though either has gone a day without a private chef”.
Ingredient of the week: cherry tomatoes
After eight years of research, Marks & Spencer’s British cherry tomatoes are now sweeter than blueberries, strawberries and every other tomato variety on the high street. This is a response to complaints that British tomatoes are “watery, bland and tasteless”, says Louise Eccles in The Times. The sweetness is induced by “stressing” the tomatoes. Farmers create “desert-like conditions”, with little water and sudden temperature changes, forcing tomato plants into “survival mode”. To protect a future generation, the plants put all their energy and hormones into growing fruit, which creates a sweeter taste.
Baked feta with cherry tomatoes and garlic toast
Recipe from Olive magazine; serves 2
Olive oil
Cherry tomatoes, 200g, halved
Feta, 200g block, halved
Sourdough, four slices
Garlic, one clove, halved
Balsamic vinegar, a drizzle
Oregano, a few leaves, picked and chopped
Herb salad, two handfuls
Heat the oven to 200C/fan 180C/gas 6. Drizzle a little oil in the bottom of two small baking dishes, add some tomatoes, season, then divide the feta on top. Top with the remaining tomatoes, season again and drizzle with more oil.
Cover with foil and bake for 20 minutes. Toast the sourdough, then rub with the cut side of garlic and drizzle with a little more oil. Remove the foil from the dishes, drizzle with some balsamic and sprinkle over the oregano. Serve the baked feta with herb salad and sourdough toast.