There are recipes that require skill, patience, timing. This is not one of them. Flor de Sal butter is the kind of thing you make once and then keep making, because it turns every piece of bread, every fillet of fish, every resting steak into something worth slowing down for.
The secret — if you can call it that — is the salt. Flor de Sal forms at the surface of the salt pans during the first light of summer. It's harvested by hand, dried by sun and wind, never washed or processed. What you get is a crystal that dissolves slowly, unevenly, in the best possible way: a crunch here, a bloom of salinity there. Butter just carries it.
Ingredients
- 200g unsalted butter, at room temperature
- 1 tsp Flor de Sal, plus extra to finish
- 1 tsp fresh thyme leaves (optional)
Method
- Leave the butter out for at least an hour — it needs to be genuinely soft, not just pliable.
- Beat briefly with a fork or spatula until smooth and spreadable.
- Fold in the Flor de Sal and thyme if using. Don't over-mix — you want the crystals to stay whole.
- Transfer to a small jar or roll in parchment paper and chill for at least 30 minutes.
- Finish with a few extra flakes of Flor de Sal before serving.
Use on sourdough straight from the oven, melted over grilled fish, or pressed into the cavity of a bird before roasting. Keeps in the fridge for two weeks, and in the freezer for three months.
