How to make a butter board, according to the chef behind the trend
The Butterboard has the foodies of TikTok and Instagram firmly in its grip — and with good reason. A butter board is easy to build and open to the chef’s interpretation.
The butter board began earlier this month with a video that Brooklyn-based chef Justine Doiron posted to Instagram on Sept. 15, claiming she wanted to make butter boards the next sausage board.
But Doiron is not the originator of the butter board. She credits chef Joshua McFadden, who has been making butter boards for about a decade.
“(I) used to make them for farm dinners that would have a bunch of different breads and spreads on the table,” he says, noting that there were a variety of purees and butters to serve with. “It was an opportunity to showcase butter and add fun, seasonal ingredients that make butter more than the sum of its parts.”
And a butter board “should never taste the same,” he says, because there are so many ways to incorporate flavors and textures (I attempted to make a fall butter board with pumpkin spice, apple, and maple flavored butters this weekend — talk delicious) .
McFadden published butter board instructions in his cookbook, Six Seasons, which he co-authored with Martha Holmberg.
The book’s publisher, Artisan Books, shared his advice on butter boarding.
Herb butter with warm bread
(By Chef Joshua McFadden) It’s impossible to write an exact recipe for this, so use this as a guide to set you on the road to success.
Bread and butter in itself is one of the perfect things in life. Good butter — grass-fed, real butter, the yellow, almost cheesy butter — shows up in small batches at farmers’ markets and even shows up on supermarket shelves. Butter gets a bad rap, but the nutrition world is finally realizing that it’s actually quite good for us. One of the healthiest, most brilliant people I know — Eliot Coleman of Four Season Farm in Maine — thinks it’s the perfect meal. He eats it almost like peanut butter, spread so thick on the bread that he can see his teeth marks after biting it.
Once you’ve found a good butter to party with, gather the herbs, edible flowers, sprouts, and baby greens. . . just mix. The end result will be stunning and tell a story – every bite is unique.
HOW TO DO IT:
Spread the butter flat on a cutting board or plate, season generously with salt flakes, several pinches of black pepper and some chili flakes.
Then just start layering the veggies and herbs, some grated citrus zest if you have it, toss some chopped cucumbers or capers on top and keep adding.
Put it on the table with a nice warm farmer’s bread and let the good times begin.
I’ve never put this on a table without sparking lots of conversation and happy faces.