Cuinneog butter is a hand-made butter made from Mayo milk from a little garden unit just outside Castlebar. It's quite widely distributed, so you often see its distinctive orange label in supermarkets and speciality shops. Cuinneog is also turning up more and more on restaurant menus, with restaurants like Chapter One highlighting that they use this very special ingredient. It's still the only commercial butter made in Ireland that is what is known as a "Country Butter", butter made using cultured cream. This mild fermentation process leaves a butter that is easier to digest, and has a great balance of taste, between crisp acidity and unctuous butterness.
Cuinneog butter is sold to the trade in a useful roll pack, along with a new product, Cuinneog fermented cream. The slightly soured cream has a todiefor taste that is rich but clean. At the moment it's only available for catering, but we reckon if we all buy more of their butter, stamp our feet and cry out it's not fair! then they might be persuaded to distribute the cream along with the splendid butter.
We visited the unit a little while ago, and donned the plastic hairnet etc to take some photographs of the traditional process of turning Mayo milk into little bars of gold. We now buy it wherever we see it. Cuinneog is a champion ingredient.
For more information contact seamus@cuinneog.ie or Tweet him @cuinneog
www.cuinneog.ie
