Boozy Butter Will Change Your Steaks Forever
Knowing how to cook the perfect steak every time can earn you quite the reputation with family and friends. After all, steak is often considered a luxury food item with lots of expectations when you bite into it. Succulent, juicy, and mouthwatering are all words we use when we speak about this prized piece of beef. And regardless of the cut of steak you throw onto the grill or into the cast iron frying pan, the hope is each forkful will be just as delicious as the next. Well, leave it to the 1980s to give us a boozy butter that will do just that.
The 80s have been on trend for a while, and plenty of folks have paid homage to the time when Madonna, Michael Jackson, Kate Bush, Duran Duran, MTV, big hair, and neon colors reigned supreme. Can't say that we blame those who weren't around to enjoy this era. Bruno Mars found inspiration in this decade for his Super Bowl Halftime show in 2016, per the Echo, and The Netflix show "Stranger Things" is a 1980s lover's TV dream. So, it makes perfect sense to reach back and borrow the butter and alcohol trick they made popular when serving steak, and this one is a game changer.
Making compound butter with alcohol
Compound butters are nothing new to the cooking scene. According to Delighted Cooking, these butters are mixed with seasonings and herbs, sugars, honey, and garlic to add a burst of flavor to your favorite foods. In fact, Andrew Zimmern is a fan of using an herb-filled version on his burgers to impart a nice dairy flavor to the meat. But boozy butters really took off in the 1980s, according to Food & Wine. The site shares two recipes from 1984: a Martini Butter made with a little gin and vermouth along with a Bloody Mary Butter made with all the flavors of this cocktail, including vodka and Worcestershire sauce. The publication notes that this is the perfect finish for a steak.
Cooking blog Crumbly Cookie shares a recipe for a whisky compound butter and notes this creamy addition can save you clean-up time, taking the place of the sauce you might make with fond or caramelized bits left in the frying pan. The compound butter can also be made days before you are actually going to use it which is the kind of convenience busy home cooks from any era can appreciate.