zOMG! Who knew it was so easy to make interesting and delicious butter?! Yes, this is going to be both a “recipe” post and a “product review” post, in one!
So remember I went to the Unilever HQ and bought a whole bunch of stuff at their company store? This was one of those items, the Knorr’s MiniCubes – basically spices in, umm, mini cube form. You just crumble them into whatever you’d like and voila!
I didn’t catch a photo of it, but on the box, it tells you what each cube is equivalent to (for example, these chipotle cubes are equal to one chili apiece). It might concern you that the box also says “Do not add salt!” but I generally keep unsalted sweet cream butter in my fridge, so this is fine. I also have never cooked with a chipotle before, nor purchased them, so this might be a little odd for me…
Each box contains 20 of these adorable little cubes.
I let some butter soften up on the counter, sliced it into a bowl, and…
Crumbled the spice-cube all up on top of the butter. Then I stir-stir-stirred until it was mostly all incorporated, toasted up a piece of pumpernickel cocktail bread, and…
Voila! Now, I’m a spicy-foods-baby (aka ‘fraidy-cat, not lover). And I’ve never cooked with chipotles. But I found the pleasantly surprising combination of spicy heat and creamy butter to be really nice. Bear in mind, though, that milk and dairy products are known to counter the effects of capsicum (I think that’s how you spell it; the stuff in peppers that makes things spicy to begin with), so that might have helped me be able to bear the heat, so to speak. In any case, I really enjoyed this butter I “made” and have already begun using it as a sandwich spread. I should also mention that before that, I have never. ever. EVER! used butter as a sandwich spread, quite on purpose. I don’t know, it’s probably because I think cold butter is a little bit gross when eaten straight like that. I need my butter melted quite a bit like above. Anyway…
I liked how easy it was to use the spice cube. I did not like the weird smell coming from it, but that might be how chipotle smells normally – remember, I’ve never cooked with nor touched a chipotle pepper, so.
I bought a couple different kinds of spice cubes, so expect to see more about these in future posts!
For now, happy eating!!!
ClaireWalter says
Brilliant use of Knorr’s cubes. I live in Colorado, and alas, our Knorr’s selection is not that great — or wwas not last time I looked. I’ve mainly seen beef, chicken, tomato and vegetable flavors. I’ll look again. I’m inspired.
Claire @ http://culinary-colorado.blogspot.com
Yvo says
Hey Claire! Thanks, but just a note: I’m not sure if you’re talking about the same thing I am. These are NOT the Knorr’s boullion cubes for broth/stock constitution, these are spice cubes specifically for crumbling up and using where one might use dried spices… 🙂
ClaireWalter says
Yvo – I haven’t seen those at all, but I will look. Colorado’s Front Range has two home-grown spiceries (Savory Spice Shop in Denver, Boulder, Littleton, and the Rocky Mountain Spice Company in Denver) plus a Penzey’s in Arvada. All of them grind and blend their own, so I frankly don’t look at the supermarket spice shelves too often, but I will or I’ll ask the market to order it for me, because this seems like a wonderful product to have on hand — in case.
Rochelle says
I feel so spoiled, with all of your recent posts! They make for a veeery happy Rochelle.
I’ve heard chipotle described as a “spicy/smoky raisin” before, though I’m not sure how accurate that is .. I don’t eat them with regularity either.
🙂
KETARITA says
Wow, I didn’t know that Knorr made a Chipotle seasoning! I will be going out to purchase those asap. I have seen the ones that they have in garlic and that is what I currently have. The first time I worked with Chipotles in a adobo sauce I put 2 in my chicken mixture (about 5 come in a small can), and I think that was too much because it was extremly spicy. I forget that even though they are smoked chillies, they are still chillies and I have to keep reminding myself of that. I always keep a can of Chipotle peppers in my pantry or a little baggie of them in my freezer. But I never thought of adding to butter…hmmm I might have to give that a try…
Draven Sin says
interesting, i want to try this.
Patty says
I found these in the Mexican section of the local Safeway. I’d been looking for them in the soup section of other stores and didn’t find them so that’s probably where they were. I was very excited because friends invited us to dinner and she made the best pot roast we’d ever had. After dinner, she showed me her secret – a couple of chipotle cubes in the water in the pan that the roast cooked in.
Yum!