Smoked salmon butter

Smoked Salmon Butter with One-Third Salmon in a Jar

Cruscana's smoked salmon butter is a spreadable salmon butter made from smoked salmon, milk, and butter. It is not a cream cheese spread with bits of salmon, but a cream where the smoked fish sets the tone – mildly seasoned with paprika.

Smoked salmon butter is a fine salmon butter from France that you can spread directly onto bread or stir into a sauce. Cruscana makes it using 33 percent smoked salmon (Salmo salar), milk, and 12 percent butter, seasoned with paprika and salt. Six ingredients, that's all it takes. One-third salmon in a jar is a serious claim – there are no shortcuts for that.

At Cruscana, it is considered a produit historique, one of the recipes that helped build the brand. It sits on the shelf next to lobster, crab, and shrimp under the heading Beurres de Crustacés. Of course, they know in Herblay that a salmon is not a crustacean. They let it join the party anyway.

Where the smoke sets the tone

It sits in the jar with a pale salmon hue, and the scent of smoke greets you the moment you open it – not harsh, more like a smokehouse from a distance.

On the tongue, it is soft and mild, significantly calmer than its siblings from the crustacean shelf. The paprika adds a warm color to the flavor without being spicy. No cayenne, no mustard – no one is fighting for attention here, so the salmon is allowed to simply be salmon.

Smoky, salty, creamy, and underneath it all, the butter that holds everything together. The finish lingers, serving as a reminder that a whole fish contributed to this, not just an aroma.

On toast with fleur de sel

Spread the Beurre de Saumon thinly on a warm slice of toast or on blinis, and sprinkle a few grains of fleur de sel on top. The crunch of the salt against the soft cream – that is the whole trick, and it works every time.

It pays to spread it sparingly; the cream goes a long way. A dab on a cucumber slice, a sprig of dill on top, and you have a snack that will keep guests coming back for more.

Mixed with a spoonful of sour cream, it becomes a dip for vegetable sticks. It also works well in a cream sauce for pasta, but be sure to stir it in at the very end and keep the heat low so the smoke flavor doesn't cook away. A dry white wine or a glass of Crémant makes it the perfect aperitif.

Because it is made without added preservatives, the jar should be refrigerated after opening and consumed within 2 days. Which is rarely a problem.

A recipe from the early years

Since 1965, Cruscana has been making butter from seafood in the outskirts of Paris – Denise and Gilbert Jouneau started in their suburban pavilion, inspired by Auguste Escoffier. The salmon butter is one of the recipes from those early years.

In 1981, the couple passed their small factory on to Knud Hays Thøgersen, a Danish importer, with one condition: the recipes had to stay. They stayed, just as Denise and Gilbert had wished. Today, the manufactory is located in Herblay, north of Paris, where over 30 preparations are created, developed by a chef in their own laboratory.

They are all gluten-free and contain no added colorings. For a cocktail party that aims to impress, Cruscana considers the salmon butter indispensable. That is the pride of a house that has been stirring the same cream for sixty years speaking.

If you prefer something bolder, try the Cruscana Lobster Butter alongside it – it packs cayenne and mustard and is significantly more outspoken. The two complement each other well on a serving board.