Compound Butter – One Of God’s Gifts

Compound butter is one of god’s gifts. It delivers flavor and mouth-feel to a multitude of dishes and should be a regular ingredient for supper clubs menus.

One of the challenges that every chef faces, is the fact that flavor gets cooked off under the high heat of any cooking process. It is particularly bad with the high heat of grilling. You can try to add flavor with marinades, rubs and even salt and pepper, but the reality is that a lot of what you are trying to add, gets lost or changed during the cooking process. The beauty of compound butter is that you get to add it after cooking, so that the flavor is not lost. Additionally, you get the added benefit of adding it as your cooked meat (or vegetable) is resting. The fat from the butter combines with the juices of your meat enhancing the overall flavor. It’s a wonderful thing.

There are all kinds of compound butters, but I have a standard that I use all of the time.

Ingredients

1 stick butter (1/2 cup) softened to room temperature
2 cloves garlic sliced
1 shallot minced (1/4 cup)
2 tablespoons olive oil
3 teaspoons kosher salt
1 teaspoon freshly ground pepper
2 tablespoons of freshly chopped herbs (Chive or scallion for beef/pork. Dill for fish)

Process

Sauté garlic and shallot in olive oil under low heat for five minutes until translucent
Add all ingredients in a food processor and pulse until well combined

The beauty of this ingredient is that you can make larger quantities and store in the freezer for months. Pull it out and use it liberally on all sorts of things. Friends and family will think you are a culinary genius.

I use compound butters all the time but it was a central ingredient in one of my most favorites events. We had 75 people at my mom’s in Westhampton at a kickoff party for my daughter’s wedding weekend. The main course evolved around using compound butters with grilled strip steak, local swordfish and eggplant. There is a seafood wholesaler on the North Shore of Long Island where we can get a whole loin of freshly caught swordfish. The fresh fish was a thing of beauty. Combined with grilling with our hero compound butter led to a memorable culinary event.

Check out the video

It doesn’t matter if you are cooking for a supper club dinner party or a quick weeknight supper, compound butters will make your dish better. And remember, you can put it on shoe leather and it would taste good.

If you enjoyed this blog and similar other stories/supper club lessons follow me on Facebook and Twitter and subscribe to get future blogs at www.impromptufridaynights.com/blog and check out my book Impromptu Friday Nights a Guide to Supper Clubs. Published by Morgan James Publishing and available through most channels where books are sold.

“I Will Have What She Is Having”

Have you ever noticed that when a party of four orders dinner at a restaurant, if someone orders something, the chances are that someone else will also order the same thing. It’s a rule. It might not be a supper club rule, but it happens all the time.

This rule isn’t always a good thing. We were once in a restaurant outside of Paris with two other couples. While my French isn’t great, my 8 years of high school and college French, made me the spokesperson for the group. I knew that veau was veal and I like veal, so I ordered rognon de veau. As the third person ordered the same thing, it occurred to me and I announced: “Rognon de veau is probably organ meat”. Of course it was, and while it wasn’t what we would have ordered, it certainly was a learning experience.

The “I’ll have what she is having” scene from the movie “When Harry Meets Sally” was filmed at the famous Katz’s deli on the lower east side of Manhattan. My connection to Katz’s goes to my Aunt Mary Johnson, the consummate shopper. Aunt Mary lived on Staten Island and worked in Manhattan. Just about every weekend she would go shopping on the lower east side and a couple of times a year my family would drive in from White Plains to visit with my aunt and shop. These visits usually included lunch at Katz’s and while the deli food was great, I never saw the reaction that Meg Ryan’s character had.

A favorite story about my Aunt Mary’s shopping prowess, goes back to when my grandparents passed away. As way of background, my father always claimed that our family was part Jewish. In the family dynamic, Aunt Mary was closer to the Jerry Seinfeld side and my uncle Jim was definitely of the Archie Bunker ilk. My grandparents died within a month of each other and as the family was preparing for their burial, Aunt Mary announced to uncle Jim that she had gotten a great deal on a tombstone. She told him she had found it in a shop of the lower east side and while it was slightly used the shop promised they could buff out the Star of David. Poor uncle Jim went into a tirade about not marking their good Catholic parent’s grave with a Jewish tombstone. To which my aunt Mary replied….”Gotcha”

The Costco Solution – Heat And Serve

The challenge that many young professionals have, is that they love to socialize over a meal with friends, but they don’t have the time to cook for a dinner party. One solution is to buy everything you need from Costco. You can buy everything: the wine and beer, hors d’oeuvres, first course, entrée, sides and dessert. You can even buy flowers for the table. All you need to do is assemble, heat and serve.

While this blog focuses on Costco, you could take the same approach with a one stop shop at Kroger, Fresh Market, Trader Joe’s or a variety of other retailers. But, you have to love Costco. The varieties of options are endless. The quality is the best.

When I worked for Kraft Food Ingredients, Costco was a major customer. We sold them tons of cheese and flavors. We once were working with Costco’s Director of R&D. We had a flavor that would make a lesser cut of beef taste like a better cut. The R&D Director who was a French Chef by training, said to me: “You don’t understand, Costco doesn’t sell lesser cuts of beef”. It is true, the quality at Costco is better across the board. By the way, Costco wound up buying lots of our flavor.

Dinner party menus don’t get much easier than these. If you can read, you can prepare these dishes. The preparation instructions on the packages are very straightforward. There should be very little of an intimidation factor for even the most inexperienced cook.

The reason for this type of approach is to attract new participants to supper club. As I have shared this concept with more experienced dinner party hosts, I have heard some negative feedback. Such as:

The quality of the prepared/process food isn’t as good as homemade
Lots of people enjoy cooking and shifting to precooked meals takes from the fun.
Prepared foods are usually higher in salt and are not the healthiest options

As with anything, change isn’t easy. But, if this type of approach brings more people to the supper club party, that is a good thing.

I ask that readers of this blog to tell me what they think of the approach