We often finish our steaks with a healthy lathering of butter. Occasionally we branch out and use garlic butter for the flavor. Somehow in all this looking forward we have forgotten the power of flavored butter. Maitre d'hotel butter is a classic and we have done it a disservice by overlooking it. At the store yesterday I saw steaks packaged with black truffle butter. Eureka. That would be amazing on top of charred steaks. Why had I not thought of that? The bigger question is why had I forgotten about that?
We seasoned the steaks and grilled them and when it was time for them to rest we slathered them in the cold black truffle butter. As the steaks rested and the juices mixed with the butter and the heat released the aromas from the butter we were indulged in olfactory and soon to follow flavorful bliss. Now we need to look at what we can and will flavor our butters with and how to customize them to the dish and ingredients at hand: pine needle miso butter with lobster, elderflower butter on biscuits, dark beer and mustard butter on sausage cured corvina.
