Maitre d’Hotel Butter (Parsley Lemon Compound Butter)

This is a part of classic cuisine that adds lots of wonderful flavor without fuss. It is also a great “go to” item for when you are pressed for time but still want something flavorful on the plate. It can be used as a base for a quick pan sauce or beurre blanc as well. Make this and store it in the freezer–it is like money in the bank. This butter takes advantage of the fresh mineral and herbaceous quality of parsley. As this is a simple recipe, it relies on the best ingredients for success. This compound butter is a classic for topping fish and steaks, but is good for a quick pasta, shrimp, or with vegetables.

INGREDIENTS:

METHOD:

Cream the butter, then spread it out in the bowl.

Scatter the parsley and salt and pepper evenly over the surface of the butter, the drizzle the lemon juice over the butter.

Stir all the ingredients together well.

Using a rubber spatula, gather the butter together and transfer to a sheet of parchment paper, foil, or plastic wrap. Place the butter near the center of the bottom edge of the sheet. Roll the sheet up over the butter to form a log shape. Twist both ends to compress the roll.

When you have a nice uniform cylinder, freeze the butter until ready to use, well wrapped.

The butter will last a few weeks frozen.

Chef’s Notes:

For optimum results, pull the butter from the freezer before you need to use it so it is the same temperature as the butter you use for toast.  Use this butter on grilled, roasted, or sautéed fish. Once the fish is on the plate, place a slice of the Maitre d’Hotel butter on the fish and let it melt, forming an easy sauce. To use this butter to make a sauce, sauté your fish or chicken and remove it from the pan. Use white wine to deglaze the pan and cook down to a teaspoon. Have handy a couple tablespoons of this butter cut into pea-sized bits. Start adding a few pellets of butter at a time, swirling to keep them from melting too fast. Keep adding the butter until you have a nice sauce-like consistency. As a recipe it runs like this; reduce 1/3^rd cup of white wine by 80%. Adding a few at a time, load in 2 tables spoons worth of compound butter pellets the size of peas a few at a time until a sauce like consistency has been reached.

*If you wish, you could use vinegar instead of the citric acid that is lemon juice. Try using white wine vinegar for fish or chicken, and use red wine or sherry vinegar instead of the lemon juice for steaks (Maitre d’Hotel butter is a common topping for steaks), although the lemony version works fine. If you wish, sauté 2-3 tablespoons of shallots before making the butter and mixing them in. You could also use white wine instead of vinegar.

You could add 2 tablespoons of sautéed shallots to the mix, or 2 tablespoons fresh chive ends or green onions, or a clove or two of pulverized garlic.

Yield: Around 4-5 ounces.

Source: Chef Andrew E Cohen