Guga's Butter of the Gods: Recipe and How-to Guide - Barbecue FAQ (2024)

“Butter of the Gods” refers to a homemade compound butter made with bone marrow; It was coined by popular YouTuber, Guga foods.

Traditionally, all I use is unsalted butter brushed onto my steaks when I reverse sear on my charcoal grill.

However, butter of the gods – while certainly a time investment – is well worth the trouble in comparison.

What Ingredients are Required for Butter of the Gods?

In order to make “Butter of the Gods” you will need:

• Marrow bones
• Shallots
• One egg (specifically the yolk)
• Unsalted butter
• Anchovy paste
• Parsley
• Kosher salt
• Sugar

Technically the above is classified as a compound butter. It just so happens that all of these ingredients create amazing flavor – some might call it “godlike.”

Note: There is a decent amount of prep work that is done before actually making the butter of the gods.

For instance, bone marrow is soaked in salt water for 3 days. It also takes 5-7 days for the egg yolks to cure.

The first thing I would do is cure the egg yolks. After 2-3 days of sitting in the salt/sugar mixture, I’d then start to soak the bone marrow in salt; This way you can make the butter on the same day.

Curing the Egg Yolks

To cure the egg yolks, you will need:

• A plate
• A mixing bowl
• Large spoon
• Kosher salt
• White sugar
• Egg yolk(s)*
• Dehydrator and/or oven

*Only 1 cured egg yolk is required for 1 batch of butter of the gods. However, due to how long they take to cure, it’s obviously recommended to make more.

The amount of sugar and salt you use is also dependent on how many egg yolks you’re curing. Essentially all you’re using is 3 parts salt to 1 part sugar – enough to cover the bottom and top of the yolk.

Note: I’m curing 5 egg yolks.

Take out a mixing bowl and add to it 3 cups of diamond crystal kosher salt and 1 cup of white sugar; With your spoon, thoroughly mix the white sugar and salt together.

With your plate, pour some of this mixture onto the plate and smooth it out.

Then with the spoon, create small divots/indents in the salt/sugar.

Separate egg yolks from the egg whites and then place the egg yolks in these divots.

Then with the remainder of your sugar/salt mixture, cover the tops of the egg yolks.

Place the plate in your refrigerator for 5-7 days.

After 5-7 days, carefully remove the egg yolks from the salt/sugar.

In a small bowl, add some cold water. With the water remove any salt and sugar from the cured egg yolks.

From there, you need to remove moisture – a dehydrator works best but if you don’t have one, simply use your oven on the lowest setting with the door cracked (using a wooden spoon) – usually this is around 170F.

Also place the egg yolks on some parchment paper.

Personally, I used my Avantco dehydrator set to 122F for 2 hours.

Here’s the cured egg yolks after dehydrating:

Cleaning the Bone Marrow

The first step is cleaning the bone marrow – essentially removing the blood.

To start, get a large mixing bowl; The bowl needs to be big enough to fit your bone marrow bones in while submerging them.

Similarly, add enough water to completely submerge the bones in.

Once you’ve found an amount of water that works for you – take the bones out and then add your kosher salt.

While there is no exacting quantity of salt – a half cup of diamond crystal kosher salt is what I used.

You then want to agitate the salt and the water with a whisk to help it dissolve.

Once dissolved, re-add your bone marrow bones.

Cover the bowl with some saran wrap/foil/a plate etc. and put into your refrigerator for 3 days.

After 3 days, the marrow should be completely white and the water should be a red hue (due to the blood being removed).

Roasting the Marrow Bones

With your cleaned marrow bones, place on an oven safe pan/dish.

Ideally, the bones are split in half horizontally to create a boat. If your bones were like this, lay them so the exposed marrow side is facing up and the bone-side is facing down.

Often with how the marrow bones are sold in my grocery store, they’re sold as discs. For the sake of this article, I opted to buy them from Wild Fork Foods so they were half cut.

Set your oven to broil (550F) or the highest setting and place the bones in the oven for 10 minutes.

After 10 minutes the marrow should be roasted.

Allow to cool and then use a spoon to remove the bone marrow and set aside.

Combine Ingredients to Make God Butter

To combine, you will need:

• Food processor – a Blender can also suffice.
• Saran wrap – I didn’t have any on hand so I used ziploc bags.
• Spoonula is ideal but a regular spoon suffices

For 1 batch of Butter of the Gods you need:

• 4 Tbsp Roasted Bone Marrow
• 1 Cured Egg Yolk
• 8 Tbsp butter (soften the butter slightly in the microwave – roughly 10 seconds)
• 1 Tsp parsley
• 2 Tsp Shallots
• 1 Tsp Anchovy paste
• 1 Pinch of Diamond crystal kosher salt

Add all the ingredients above in the specified quantities to a food processor and mix until well combined.

Lay out a sheet of saran wrap/cling wrap.

Use a Spoonula to scoop the god butter onto the center of the saran wrap. Fold all the edges of the cling wrap onto the butter and then twist the ends.

Or if you’re like Me, scoop the God Butter into a plastic bag:

Then, to set the butter back up, put the wrapped god butter into your refrigerator for at least 2 hours.