A new development has surfaced in the world of butter. As we all know, butter is the source of all joy and light in this world (you can quote me on that). But what happens when you merge butter with charcuterie? In a word: magic.
The concept of a butter board is stunningly simple and genius at the same time. Take a bar of butter, smear it on a wooden board, add whatever herbs, spices, sauces, and toppings that you want, and serve with warm bread.
TikTok food content creator and recipe developer Justine Doiron (@justine_snacks on TikTok) adapted the original technique from James Beard Award winning chef Joshua McFadden and posted it on TikTok. Unsurprisingly, the butter board went viral. After being posted four days ago, the video has since garnered over 7 million views, almost a million likes, and spawned more butter board content from other creators on the platform.
As your resident, self-appointed Butter Queen, the news has brought shock and delight into my life. Aside from being absolutely gorgeous and delicious (well, depending on the type of butter you use, to be frank), it also leaves a lot of room for creativity.
Majority of the content creators we see who’ve made their own version of the butter board are from Western countries. It begs the question, what would a Filipino butter board look like?
As always, there are two routes to consider in constructing any recipe: sweet or savory? Or you know, circumvent the norm and do both.
A Filipino butter board could look like a bed of carabao butter topped with pili nuts, diced dried mangoes and pineapple, deep fried spicy tuyo, a few pieces of smoked spanish sardines, drizzled with your choice of local honey and served with freshly baked pan de sal.
Making a butter board can be a fun activity for your next gathering, too. Asking friends to bring a favorite ingredient to add on the board can result in interesting flavor combos. It might work, it might not, but that’s part of the fun.
In the original video Dorion posted, she said that she wanted the butter board to “maybe, kind of” usurp the charcuterie board. It might just be me, but she has my complete and total support.
