A better way to serve bread and butter

I love really good bread and salty butter. If you aren’t in the locale of a fancy butter maker, and Stateside it is tricky to get the good European-style stuff that I love, you can wing it by adding your own flavours to whatever butter you have. That way they taste better, and look a bit fancy alongside your bread. Note – taste first, looking fancy second!

I served this ACME bread that I picked up in San Francisco (warmed for a few minutes in the oven) on a board with a few slices of Kerrygold grass-fed butter (from Trader Joe’s) when we had some friends over a few weeks ago. To make the butter a bit better, I sliced it then sprinkled a thick strip of Maldon salt on one pat, and put a sprig of rosemary on the other. If you leave the rosemary on the butter overnight it adds a really subtle flavour to the butter. I’m never organised enough to do that though.

I found these little green jadeite dishes at the fabulous Daiso Japanese dollar store in San Francisco. They are sold as holders for soy sauce but I love them for butter or jam. You can get similar at most Asian supermarkets wherever you are in the world.

We had our bread and butter alongside a stew and salad that I made. They would also be lovely served with eggs or jams for brunch. Or serve it with a platter of cured meats and pickles pre-dinner.