FOOD NEWS
The Simple Technique For Making Compound Butter
BY MEGGAN ROBINSON
Compound butter, or butter combined with herbs, spices, and other seasonings to be used as a topping, can be the ingredient that takes a dish from "good" to one of excellence.
Many recipes call for mashing seasonings into butter by hand, but there’s an even simpler way. You could even skip the skeps where you chop herbs, grind spices, or zest lemons.
Use a food processor for the fastest compound butter. Start with chopped butter at room temperature or cooler, so it doesn’t melt when you blend it.
Put the butter in the food processor with garlic, dill, parsley, chives, lemon zest, or whatever else you like. Run the food processor until all the ingredients are combined.
A food processor chops your ingredients and distributes them throughout the butter at the same time. Woody herbs like rosemary should still be plucked from the tough stems first.
Use a spatula to scrape the finished butter onto plastic wrap, then roll it into a log shape. Once it’s refrigerated for a while, your compound butter is ready to slice and use.