Sharing Mini - Orange and Huckleberry Honey Butter

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I'm back with another little mini post, and once again it's a compound butter! Possibilities really are endless out there for compound butters, and I'll have more here and there in the future as I use up previous ones! This time we have a bit of a cheater, but it's a good one. This recipe combines the flavors of honey, huckleberry and orange into one nice little spread. You could use huckleberry jam for a concentrated huckleberry flavor, but in this version here we're hitting two birds with one stone and using a pre-made huckleberry honey butter to make this even easier!

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Special Tools Alert!


You will need something to get orange zest with for this recipe. I have a Microplane grater, but any grater/shredder that has a "fine" option will work.

Ingredients

1/2 Cup Butter (1 stick)
1/2 Cup Huckleberry Honey
 2 Oranges (for zest)

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Directions

1. Make sure your butter is softened before starting
2. Zest your two oranges into a small bowl
3. In a small mixing bowl, combine softened butter with zest and huckleberry honey. Whisk to combine.
4. Really whip it with that whisk. Store in an airtight container in the fridge for longest shelf life. Otherwise, enjoy within about two weeks at room temp!

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Tips/Tricks

Once again with compound butters, almost anything is possible. Toast up a Tablespoon of pecans or walnuts and then chop them up and you have yourself an even more complex and interesting whipped butter.

Perfect for breakfasts on toast or english muffins. A great topper for pancakes or waffles if you have a berry syrup to accompany it.

If you wanted to use huckleberry jam instead, use 1/4th Cup Jam and 1/4th Cup Honey to keep the proportions about the same.

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Bourbon Maple Syrup Brined Pork Tenderloin with a Bourbon Maple Syrup and Honey Mustard Glaze

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Serves 2-4I make Pork Tenderloin a lot for work, but I was actually nervous about making it at home because at work I'm making about 16 at a time and have never made just one. Truth be told, this recipe came about because I have roughly 7 different kinds of maple syrup at home and I wanted to use one for something that wasn't pancakes. While my usual go-to for pork tenderloin is an apple-based sauce (I'll be doing one for fall, don't worry!) I wanted to experiment with a slightly different style than I usually go for while still being an absolute flavor winner for pork. Brining the pork with maple syrup and a hickory smoked sea salt really make sure that hickory-bourbon-maple flavor was present throughout the meat and not just relying on the glaze to deliver that punch.

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Ingredients

1 Pork Tenderloin (1.5-2 lbs.)
1 Quart Cold Water
1/4th Cup Hickory Smoked Sea Salt
1/3 Cup and 2 Tbsp. Bourbon Barrel Aged Pure Maple Syrup
6 Cloves Garlic, minced or crushed
3 Tbsp. Fresh Ginger, Chopped
1 Tbsp. Black Pepper
2 Tbsp. Honey Mustard
2 tsp. Dried Rosemary
2 tsp. Dried Thyme
1 tsp. Red Pepper Flakes

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Directions

1.  Make the Brine. In a large bowl, combine Water with 1/3 Cup of the syrup, Garlic, Ginger, Black Pepper, Rosemary Thyme and Red Pepper Flakes and stir until thoroughly incorporated.
2. Add the Pork to brine bowl and make sure it is fully submerged in brine. Cover with plastic wrap or lid and leave in fridge 5-10 hours. More than 10 hours and it could end up being too salty.
3. Preheat Oven to 325 degrees and remove Pork from Brine and thoroughly rinse off in cold running water. Pat dry.
4. Quickly mix together in a small bowl the remaining 2 Tbsp. of Syrup and the Honey Mustard, set aside.
5. Heat up an oven-safe skillet on medium heat on the stove top and pour in just enough neutral cooking oil (Canola, Vegetable) to cover the bottom.
7. Season your pork on all sides with salt and pepper and place in your hot pan.
8. Sear your pork on the stove top on all sides, about 10 minutes, a nice golden brown color.
9. Once seared all the way around, take the whole skillet and place it in the oven. Cooking time will vary by size of the tenderloin, but we're looking for the perfect internal temperature of 145 degrees. For me, I had a 1.5 lb. tenderloin, and this took about 10 minutes.
10. Take your pan out of the oven and brush the Syrup and Honey Mustard mixture over the pork, return to Oven to let set, about 5-10 minutes. For me it was about 5.
11. Remove Pan from Oven, take pork out and place on cutting board, letting rest for about 10 minutes.
12. Slice pork into medallions and if you have any of the Syrup and Honey Mustard mixture remaining, drizzle over top of the sliced medallions.

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What I Could Do Differently

As previously mentioned it in my Apple Cider Brined BBQ Pulled Pork recipe, I picked up this Hickory Smoked Sea Salt from a specialty store. I believe if you have a cooking specialty store it might be available there, and I am sure you can get some online. However, I feel like this recipe will work just as good without it and you can just substitute in Kosher Salt in the brine instead if need be.

The bourbon barrel aged maple syrup is another craft specialty item, which I got from Costco. This recipe can be made without it as long as you have a good pure maple syrup, but if you're on the fence about buying a specialty-flavored pure maple syrup, you can just add regular pure maple syrup and put a shot of Bourbon in your brine instead.

As with most of my recipes, this is really just an excuse for me to play with different flavors I have laying around in my kitchen. If you know you like a flavor that goes well with pork, feel free to try out different variations. For example, I also happen to have a locally produced Apple Cider syrup from a nearby farm and while it's not going to give you the same flavor combo, I could see subbing in that Apple Cider Syrup and a shot of bourbon in the brine in place of this bourbon maple syrup for a similar profile and just as tasty tenderloin.

This recipe easily scales, as most of the ingredients are just in the brine. I know in my bowl I had room (and enough liquid) for at least a second tenderloin of similar size. More than that and you'll probably need to double the brining amounts however. As for glaze, just double the amounts of Syrup and Mustard for each additional tenderloin and for cook time probably add another 10-ish minutes per loin, but you should be using a meat thermometer to be the ultimate judge of time for pork. As long as you're pulling them out when they hit 145 degrees, you're good.

Sharing Mini - Cinnamon Honey Butter

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Originally I intended this to be part of a larger series of compound butters, but it didn't come together in time. Instead, I decided I'd break these compound butters down into their own mini posts as I make them, so that I don't have like...6 different butters in my fridge at one time.

So today's recipe is very easy and delicious. A butter infused with cinnamon, vanilla and honey. Compound butters, sweet and savory, are an easy way to impart flavor on something without doing much work. Make the butter ahead of time and wham! you have it ready to use whenever you feeling like adding some to a meal. This butter, a cinnamon and honey butter, is my most made and used, as my breakfast most weeks includes English Muffins. Perfect as a topping for my Mexican Chocolate Banana Bread as well as cornbread and even melted and tossed with carrots. Without further ado, let's get down to it.

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Ingredients

1 8oz Stick Butter, room temp
1/4th Cup Honey
1/2 tsp. Cinnamon
1/2 tsp. Pure Vanilla Extract

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Directions

1. Take your room temp Butter and place it in a small mixing bowl and whisk
2. Once butter is broken down a bit and whipped up, add your Honey, Cinnamon and Vanilla
3. Whisk together to combine, making sure no butter has gone un-mixed
4. Transfer your butter to a sealable container. Can be stored room temp for about two weeks or in the fridge for about a month.

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What Could I Do Differently

Really in this case, you can play around with what kind of honey you're using to great effect, as each one has it's own flavor. I'm using a hyper-local wildflower honey, made about 7 miles from my house. Want more floral notes, use a lavender infused honey. Want more citrus notes, use an orange blossom variety
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