Our first proper New Zealand butter! We sampled the salted and unsalted at the same time and there's a reason why New Zealand has the reputation it does!
Ah, New Zealand. We were so excited to find Anchor butter here in Dubai. Anchor is an interesting company - its home is New Zealand but it also has a solid commercial presence in the UK through its UK company. We can find Anchor UK easily here in Dubai but Anchor ZN, with its New Zealand produced milk, is much harder to find.
Luckily, #Kibsons is here to rescue us!
Anchor Unsalted Butter Appreciation
Butter Break Down
Appreciation Date: 05/11/2020
Country of Origin: New Zealand
Point of Procurement: Kibsons
Purchase State: Frozen
Milk: Cow, pasteurised
Salt Content: None
Milk Fat Content: 82.9%
Ingredients: Cows' milk cream.
Declared Possible Allergens: Cows' milk.
Company Website: https://www.anchordairy.com/nz/en.html
Butter Evaluation
In which we discuss Anchor NZ's Unsalted butter.
We were so excited to try this butter! New Zealand has developed itself an excellent reputation for meat and dairy products still produced in environmentally friendly settings and we are always eager to support sustainable farming, packaging and supply chain practices*. (*We acknowledge that we are in Dubai and that even the notion of butter here is ludicrous but... we digress.)
This one arrived frozen and in a proper block of butter. 454 grams is a pound and this has the heft of something weighed in Imperial measurements.
This stuff is solidly yellow- quite matte and stiff. It has structural integrity, even at room temperature.
If you're looking for butter dish butter, this is it. It can take some heat without melting into a complete puddle.
The one thing we noticed, though, is that the packaging got in the way of the aroma. With both this and the salted version, the packaging (for whatever reason) contributed a slightly industrial or manufactured note to the aroma profile which was really disappointing. We are, however, not having a go at Anchor since it's a miracle of modern ingenuity that this stuff is even available here but it did lend a somewhat plasticky note to the aroma. This was an utter shame as this butter has very little aroma so the packaging is quite noticeable.
Final Rundown
Apart from the disappointment of the packaging interfering with the aroma, this is a really good butter. As to whether or not the packaging is actually a 'problem', it could be down to pandemic supply chains or to the fact that few butter manufacturers nowadays use the same type of paper wrapper. Something to ponder, anyway.
The butterfat content of this stuff, however, is impressive. At 82.9%, it's probably the highest we've sampled so far (the UK has a high general level but they're not required to declare it on their labels). As such, it's got great integrity and works extremely well as a butter dish butter.
On the whole, though, it has such a discrete flavour profile that you can't help but wonder if you've missed something. It's rich on the palate but not 'butter forward'. So perhaps not a bread-and-butter butter but excellent for enhancing more delicate flavours that need a blank canvas with 'oomph'.
Colour: Intense, solid matte light yellow
Aroma: Very little; packaging interference
Taste: Extremely discrete. Rich on the palate but a good 'blank canvas'