Compound Butter: A great way to flavor food

This technique for cooking proteins (in this case cod) can be applied to almost any dish to impart flavor. I was looking for a simple way to make fish with very little effort. I settled on making a compound butter, which can be made in advance. The great thing about the technique is the fact that you can choose the ingredients you like and mix them together with butter.

Compound Butter Ingredients

1 tablespoon of fresh chopped parsley (1/8 cup dried parsley as a substitute)

1 teaspoon of paprika (smoked paprika is nice substitute here, just use 1/2 teaspoon or each)

1 stick of softened butter at room temperature

1 tablespoon of shallot (3 cloves of garlic is a good substitute)

juice of half a lemon (adjust amount to taste)

salt

pepper

1 teaspoon of lemon zest

plastic wrap

aluminum foil

Flavored butter preparation

Set up your cutting board, towel and ingredients for prepping

Cutting board, with parsley, lemon, softened butter and shallot

With your knife, dice the shallot

Dicing the shallot

Take the fresh parsley and trim the stems and roll it into pretty tight roll like a chiffonade. Slice the fresh parsley until it has a fine texture.

Finely chopping the parsley

In a small mixing bowl, place the softened butter

Softened butter in a mixing bowl

Add diced shallot into mixing bowl. Approximately 1 tablespoon

Adding minced shallot to bowl

Add the finely sliced fresh parsley into the mixing bowl. Approximately 1 tablespoon

Added finely sliced parsley to the bowl

Adding 1/2 teaspoon of smoked paprika into the mixing bowl

Adding smoked paprika to bowl

Add 1/2 teaspoon of sweet paprika into the mixing bowl

Adding sweet paprika to mixing bowl

With a zesting tool, zest 1/2 of lemon into the mixing bowl

Zesting lemon into bowl

Add the juice of 1/2 a lemon into the mixing bowl

Juicing 1/2 of lemon into the bowl

With a fork, begin to break up the butter and incorporate all the ingredients until the mixture is thoroughly combined. Then salt and pepper to taste.

Combining all the ingredients with a fork

On a flat surface, lay a sheet of plastic wrap that spans about 12 to 14 inches on top of your cutting board and begin to lay the mixture out lengthwise. Lay the mixture onto the plastic wrap long way and towards the near edge of the plastic wrap.

Placing mixture on the plastic wrap lengthwise

Begin to roll up the mixture inside the plastic wrap while making sure mixture is evenly distributed across the plastic wrap. The roll should be about 1 inch in diameter. Once the mixture is rolled up, twist the ends closed.

Rolling the mixture into the plastic wrap

Wrap the butter tube in foil and store in your freezer for up to 6 months.

Rolling mixture in foil

Cooking the Fish Total time 24 minutes

1. If the fish is in large fillets, then trim them into individual equally-sized portions

2. Remove butter from freezer and slice into 1/4 inch medallions

3. Place medallions on top of the fish

   Broil at 400 for two 10 minute segments (Total 20 minutes.) Time may vary slightly based on the size of the fish

4. After the first 10 minutes, flip the fish and finish cooking.

Note: compound butter can be used in all sorts of ways, but generally I like to use it when finishing a pan seared protein in the oven like a nice pan seared steak with compound herb butter.

To Serve

1. Remove fish from the pan and place on plate

2. Spoon the butter sauce over the fish.

Broiled cod with compound butter, oven roasted potatoes and sautéed spinach with ham

Bon Appetit!