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Maitre D'Hotel Sauce
To one cup of melted butter, add a teaspoonful of chopped parsley, the juice of one lemon, salt and a small pinch of cayenne. Let this simmer on the back of the stove, but not boil.
A three-ingredient butter sauce whose success rests entirely on heat control. The whole instruction that matters is the last clause: keep it below a simmer.
- "Melted butter" — read it literally hereIn many books of this era "melted butter" is a code phrase for a flour-thickened butter sauce (butter, flour, hot water). This recipe gives no flour or liquid, so take it at face value: one cup of butter, melted, roughly two sticks or 8 oz.
- Never let it boilButter is an emulsion of fat, water and milk solids. Brought to a boil it breaks and you get greasy oil with sediment. Hold it around 150-160F — warm enough to stay fluid, cool enough to stay together.
- "Back of the stove"On a wood or coal range the back of the top plate was the coolest spot. On a modern hob that means the lowest setting, and even then a heat diffuser or a bowl over hot (not boiling) water is safer.
- Lemon juiceOne lemon yields 2-3 tablespoons, which is assertive against a cup of butter. Add half, taste, then add the rest. Stir the juice in off the direct heat so the acid does not shock the emulsion.
- CayenneA "small pinch" is about 1/16 teaspoon. It is meant to be undetectable as heat and to sharpen the lemon; cayenne varies a great deal in strength, so err low.
- Yield and useAbout a cup — enough for four to six servings poured over grilled fish, steak, or boiled vegetables. Sauce the food at the table; it will not hold long.
- The chilled alternativeThe same three flavourings worked into softened butter, rolled in paper and refrigerated, gives the more familiar maître d'hôtel butter, sliced into coins and set on hot meat. Same seasoning, no emulsion to break.
"À la maître d'hôtel" means, roughly, in the style of the head of the household staff — French kitchen shorthand for a plain, quickly assembled finish rather than a laboured sauce, and the phrase has a long history in French cookery, where parsley-lemon butter was the standard dressing for grilled fish and meat. The version here, melted rather than the compound butter more common in French practice, suits a range with a wide top plate and uneven heat, where a small pan of something warm could sit at the back until dinner was dished.