Compound Butters = Quick Veggie Preparation

OK,OK... I know too much butter is bad for you.

But before you waste your caloric butter allowance on a piece of toast, you might want to think about a pat of compound butter on your freshly cooked vegetables.

Compound butters are another one of those easy to make and have on hand things in your kitchen to WOW your guests/family. As a quick dressing over fish or vegetables to a sauce with pasta and veggies, compound butters are a way to add flavor and simplicity to your cooking.

A compound butter is nothing other than butter prepared with a variety of flavoring ingredients. The range of flavorings is endless.

The preparation is simple: incorporate chosen flavorings into room temperature butter. I prefer to start with unsalted butter and salt it myself. Small batches can be incorporated by hand. For larger batches, I recommend using a blender or food processor. NOTE: when using kitchen appliances for mixing, avoid over heating the butter.

After the compound butter is made, place it in a container in the refrigerator for several hours to allow the flavors to fuse and harden.

Also, compound butters store wonderfully in the freezer for future use. To avoid the butter taking on the flavor of your freezer, it is important that you store and freeze the butter airtight. This can be achieve by placing butter onto wax paper and rolling into a log with no air pockets. After the log is formed, take the wax paper log and wrap in several layers of plastic wrap and freeze.

Below are a series of savory compound butters that work great with vegetables and more.

1) Classic Tuscan Butter - butter with minced basil, garlic, parsley, rosemary and thyme.. Works great on grilled fish and veggies with pasta

2) Roasted Garlic Butter - just roasted garlic and butter. Works great on cooked steaks, in mashes (potato or other), on steamed veggies, and over bread

3) Scampi Butter - butter with roasted garlic, herbs and lemon. Excellent to toss on veggies or as a finish for seared chicken or fish

4) Basil Walnut Pesto Butter - butter mixed with pesto (oil drained). Great on grilled chicken with greens, in rice or pasta, or on slices of baguette with fresh basil and fresh mozzarella

5) Southwest Butter - butter mixed with cilantro, lime, chilies (fresh or powder), paprika. Great on fresh summer corn on the cob, on pasta, with grilled fish tacos

6) Shallot Chardonnay Butter - butter with shallots and Chardonnay. Light in flavor - excellent on delicate fish filets and pasta

7) Cheese Butter - butter mixed with Parmigianino, Pecorino , Romano or Asiago shredded cheese. Awesome on grilled veggies and fresh bread


Endnote - If there is more interest in this topic, I would be happy to do a future post on sweet compound butters.