Wild garlic butter

Compound butters are one of the best and easiest ways of flavouring a dish, as fat is an excellent carrier of flavour. Wild garlic season is short and sweet, which makes preserving it in butter a great way of stretching out the season that little bit longer. The butter keeps in the freezer for months without losing any of its vibrant flavour or colour, so whip up a big batch and use this to add some wild garlic flavour to your dishes way into summer.

Wild garlic butter is a wonderfully versatile thing – who doesn’t want more butter or more garlic on anything they’re eating? You can swap it in anywhere you’d use a regular garlic butter; think garlic mushrooms, chicken Kyivs or homemade garlic bread. In fact, many freshly baked breads benefit from a brush of melting garlic butter, from Miranda MacDonald's Khorasan dinner rolls to Vivek Singh’s Naan bread recipe.

Liven up simple steamed or boiled vegetables with a blob of the butter, or smother over sweetcorn. Shove under the skin of your next roast chicken, or of course finish off a big juicy steak by basting it with plenty of the stuff. If you’re feeling adventurous, everybody knows garlic is a snail's best friend! Dominic Chapman’s Snails with garlic butter and Gorgonzola would happily benefit from some wild garlic butter.