When you serve your food with butter and other flavors you are a step away from having a compound butter. The only difference is that you create the butter separately, prior to adding it to your dish. If you've ever had hush puppies with honey butter, steak with a slab of butter on top, or anything served with a flavored butter, you've had compound butter.
It's is one of those parts of a dish that can accentuate a dish while serving a purpose. It looks pretty, and it adds both flavor and texture to the dish. While I was in culinary school I was taught that there are two main types of compound butter, simple and complex. The only difference between the two is that the complex compound butter requires cooking in the preparation of the additives to the butter, while simple is just that.
The main concept behind these butters are that you temp out the butter to soften it, then you add your ingredients to it. If you are making a complex butter that requires cooking, you want to make sure the cooked product is chilled prior to adding it to the butter. Some classic compound butters that are frequently used are Maitre D'Hotel, Garlic Butter, Honey Butter, Espolette Butter, Lemon Pepper Butter, etc. There are any number of variations that you can make to enhance your dish, you just need to make sure the flavors you are putting into it accentuate the overall dish, as opposed to adding new flavors into it.
One thing to note when making compound butters is that the ingredients you add to the butter don't really change size or shape. If you are adding shallots, when you add them you want a small fine dice, so that the shallots are not overwhelming to your bite. The same goes for herbs, spices, or any other ingredient you are adding to your butter.
This particular recipe is for Marrow Butter, a complex compound butter that I used for my Pot-Au-Feu soup. To begin with I lightly roasted marrow bones to loosen the marrow inside. Then I sauteed the marrow with shallots and deglazed it with a splash of sherry vinegar. Once chilled I added chopped parsley, salt and pepper, butter, and the cooked marrow. I threw it into a blender and mixed it until smooth.
Compound butter is one of those things that can greatly increase your cooking game. It can finish your dish in an amazing way, it can add flavor to an ingredient your making, and it can be held for a fairly long time to use over and over in your cooking.
Ingredients
Butter, cubed 1 lb
Marrow, out of bone 1/2 cup
Shallot, finely diced 2 ea (if large, 3 if smaller)
Sherry Vinegar 1 T
Parsley, roughly chopped 1 oz
Salt to taste
Pepper to taste
Method of Procedure
Pull your butter and temp it until soft (just leave it out on a plate for a couple of hours)*.
Heat a saute pan and add your shallots to the pan. Cook on high until lightly translucent then add your marrow.
Cook for a couple on minutes than add your sherry vinegar, salt, and pepper.
Remove from heat and chill.
Place your softened butter into you food processor and add the cooked marrow and parsley.
Run your food processor and taste, add salt and pepper as needed.
*You can use a microwave to temp butter in a quicker fashion, you just need to pulse the butter. 10 second intervals, then rotate the butter so it doesn't liquefy on one side.
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