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Hot in the kitchen: Padma’s chili honey butter


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Chili honey butter
Padma Lakshmi

1 cup

Chili ... honey ... butter. Need I say more? It’s actually dangerous to keep this condiment around because you will find yourself buttering your toast with it, frying up eggs with a bit of it melted in the pan, not to mention making home fries, too. And that’s just breakfast. It can be used to sauté green beans and carrots, to brush on grilled fish, even to baste a whole chicken for roasting. The possibilities are endless.

INGREDIENTS

8 tablespoons (1 stick) unsalted butter, at room temperature
1 1⁄2 tablespoons honey
1 teaspoon cayenne
Salt

Recipe continues below ↓
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DIRECTIONS

Combine all the ingredients and whip in a blender or processor or just by hand with a fork until they form a smooth sauce.

Spoon it into a rigid plastic container and keep covered in the fridge.

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Barbecued shrimp with chili honey butter
Padma Lakshmi

Serves 4

I stopped keeping Chili Honey Butter in my fridge because it was just too damn tempting. I’d slather the velvet spread on everything in the pantry. I first spread it on toast, as a way of gussying up breakfast, and then graduated to putting a few pats in the frying pan when making eggs and home fries. Soon I began sautéing beans, fish filets, peas, and whatever other vegetables gave me the excuse to have some of this melted golden bit of heaven in my mouth. Here I give you a simple recipe for barbecued shrimp and grill-charred zucchini ribbons.

INGREDIENTS

2 pounds jumbo shrimp, cleaned, peeled, and deveined
1⁄4 cup fresh-squeezed lime juice
2⁄3 teaspoon salt
2 zucchini (1 pound), blanched for 4 to 5 minutes, and drained
1⁄2 cup Chili Honey Butter
4 to 6 wooden skewers, each 1 foot long, soaked in cold water for 30 minutes

DIRECTIONS

Marinate the shrimp in the lime juice and salt while readying the grill, approximately 15 to 20 minutes.

Light the grill so that the coals get nice and hot and the flames die down. The coals should be glowing red and white.

While waiting for the grill, use a mandolin or very sharp knife and carefully slice the zucchini vertically into very thin ribbon slices.

Melt the Chili Honey Butter in a small saucepan on very low heat.

To make each skewer, fold a zucchini slice over itself backward and forward to form an accordion shape. Do this by first folding back one end of the zucchini strip (more than an inch) toward the middle of the strip. Now fold it back the other way and then back the other way again. Keep doing this until the strip is completely bunched up, the way one makes a folded paper fan. Pierce the folded zucchini strip and slide it to the end of the skewer.

Now pierce a shrimp through and slide it all the way down the skewer to meet the zucchini. Alternate the shrimps and zucchini on the skewers. You should be able to fit 3 or 4 zucchini slices and 2 or 3 shrimps on a skewer. Don’t push the shrimp too tightly up against the zucchini because you want the zucchini to cook through, and if the heat cannot get to it you will have unevenly cooked zucchini (this is also why you first blanch the zucchini).

Now lay the skewers flat and lightly brush both sides with the melted Chili Honey Butter.

Cook the skewers for 2 to 3 minutes on each side. Do not overcook the shrimp or they will become chewy. Two minutes into cooking each side, baste the skewers with the Chili Honey Butter again. Serve warm.

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Excerpted from “Tangy, Tart, Hot and Sweet: A World of Recipes for Every Day” by Padma Lakshmi. Copyright 2008 Padma Lakshmi. Reprinted with permission from Weinstein Books. All rights reserved.


© 2008 MSNBC Interactive


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