Coffee butter

I know, i know: Italians are supposed to deal with coffee just for espressos, moccas or for Tiramisu'. But being a curious Italian i keep looking for new tecniques and new flavor combinations. I stepped into this idea looking for new ways to enhance my sous-vide steak and i just got blown away.

To respect at least a bit the tradition i got the coffee beans from my friend Aldo who is from Naples, the Italian capital of coffee.

Ingredients:

Coffee beans, whole 250 gr

Butter unsalted, 500 gr

Method:

Vacuum package the whole coffee beans together with the unsalted butter. Coffee beans are fairly buoyant because of the large volume of CO₂ they contain, so remove as much gas as possible during the vacuum packing step. I recommend adding a heavy weight to the bag to help it sink.

Cook sous-vide at  90 °C for three hours. Shorter cooking times will yield a milder coffee flavor. Strain the beans from the infused butter through a chinois or a sieve. Agitate the beans to extract as much of the infused butter as possible, then discard the beans. Vacuum pack the coffee butter and keep refrigerated until needed.

Tip:

Coffee butter works amazingly with a sous-vide steak ( in this case a boneless rib-eye steak ). The tecnique is very easy:

Vacuum package the steak with enough coffee butter to coat the steak as it cooks. Cook the steak sous vide to your desired core temperature. After cooking the steak, briefly sear it again to refresh the crust. This can be done in a pan, on a grill or on the stone.  Brush the steak with warm coffee butter, season with salt, and then slice into few portions.