Created by the French Dairy Board and the European Union, the Butter of Europe Campaign aims to promote and build awareness to the use, benefits and gastronomic value of European butter. To this end, three of the Middle East’s leading chefs have been chosen, thanks to their flair for using the finest butters, to appear in an exclusive recipe book “Butter of Europe: French butter, the secret to make the difference”, distributed in the Middle East and Asia.

Chef Ahmad Fraijeh from Saudi Arabia, Chef Mohanad Alshamali from Dubai and Lebanese-based Chef Maroun Chedid were selected to have their creations featured in the book, which not only showcases a range of recipes from leading chefs from around the world but also highlights the history of butter and top tips on how to use it.

Butter of Europe was present at the 2018 Beirut Cooking Festival animating Masterclasses and cooking demonstrations through the 3-day gathering. Visitors had the chance not only to discover and taste recipes with Francois Robin, but also to participate in hands-on workshops and improve their skills when cooking with butter.

Workshops at Maroun Chedid Academy

On November 7th, 2018, two workshops were held at the Maroun Chedid Cooking Academy welcoming Lebanon’s leading chefs in the morning and the media and bloggers in the evening.

Chef Chedid led the workshop through several demonstrations on the superiority of European butter, its importance in gastronomy and the many ways it brings out special flavors in cooking. Speaking at the event, he said, “European butter is a versatile product, a delicious enhancer for so many foods and the essential ingredient for baking.”

During the blogger’s workshop, he teamed up with Francois Robin, French Dairy specialist awarded Meilleur Ouvrier de France Fromager, who started the workshop by making butter using a manual churn, demonstrating the easy and natural process of turning dairy cream into butter. He then created some flavored butters using different ingredients such as seaweed, curry, thyme, pistachio and dates.

From a gastronomic point of view, Chef Chedid prepared his famous Mediterranean Land and Sea, Winter Vegetables with Smoked Butter dish, created exclusively for the Butter of Europe book. Guests had the chance to learn more about European butter and its importance in capturing and sublimating the aromas of the ingredients adding sophistication to the simplest dishes and creating alchemy with unusual flavors.

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