Compound Butter Is the Easiest Way to Upgrade Your Cooking

"If you haven't noticed, I live for good butter. Once you ditch the mediocre sticks and start using the quality stuff, you'll notice a difference in everything - from a simple slice of buttered sourdough to a bowl of fancy popcorn. It's true that excellent butter doesn't need anything to dress it up, but there is one way to make it fancier and even more flavorful: by making compound butter."

""Compound butter is a simple yet elegant way to elevate your cooking," says Jodi Moreno, the James Beard-nominated author of Simple Pleasures: Incredibly Craveable Recipes for Everyday Cooking. "By marrying butter with herbs, spices, aromatics or something sweet, it becomes a ready-to infusion that melts easily and luxuriously, adding depth, aroma and consistency. It can transform any dish into something special, whether it's a garlic butter gracing a perfectly seared steak or some maple butter over a stack of warm pancakes.""

"Flavored butter is one of the recipes in the Essential Sauces chapter of Simple Pleasures, and it really emphasizes how easy it is to make. Not only does Moreno break down the process step-by-step, but she also provides recipes for some of her favorite flavor combos. Once you've made the compound butter, you can freeze it to have on-hand when you want to cook but don't have a lot of time."

Compound butter is butter mixed with additional ingredients to create different flavor profiles. High-quality unsalted butter at room temperature blends smoothly and yields the best results. Common additions include herbs, spices, aromatics, miso, garlic, chives, maple, or sweet elements. Compound butter melts luxuriously and adds depth, aroma, and consistency when used to finish steaks, fish, vegetables, pancakes, or bread. Homemade compound butter can be prepared simply, portioned, and frozen for quick use. Recipes and step-by-step processes illustrate flavor combinations and techniques such as basting with garlic-chive butter or finishing with miso butter.

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