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Butter Seasoned with Pepper
Work up some butter with powdered pepper, and serve as soon as prepared. Butter and other spices may be prepared in a similar manner.
A compound butter reduced to its bare minimum. The only real decisions are the ratio and the pepper itself, neither of which the original bothers to specify.
- ProportionsA workable starting point is 1 teaspoon of finely ground pepper to 4 oz (1 stick) of butter, adjusted to taste. The original gives no ratio at all, so treat this as a guide rather than a conversion.
- "Work up"Means to cream the butter until it is soft and smooth enough to take the pepper evenly — a wooden spoon, a fork, or a stand mixer paddle. The butter should be at cool room temperature, not melted, or the pepper will sink and the mixture will separate.
- "Powdered pepper""Powdered" points to pepper ground fine rather than to a modern coarse grind; how fine varied with the household and its pepper mill or mortar. Either works: coarse grind gives visible flecks and a sharper bite; fine grind gives a more uniform heat.
- Serve at once, and whyThis is the hinge of the instruction. Freshly ground pepper loses aroma as its volatile oils dissipate, so a peppered butter is at its most pungent soon after mixing and duller once it has sat. Made fresh it is the better thing.
- SaltThe recipe assumes whatever butter is to hand. Salted butter needs nothing further; with unsalted, add a pinch of fine salt or the pepper reads as harsh rather than seasoned.
- "Other spices"The same method takes cayenne, mace, paprika, mustard powder or grated nutmeg. Dry ground spices incorporate cleanly; anything wet — lemon juice, minced herbs, anchovy — needs to be beaten in gradually or the butter will break.
- Yield and useFour ounces of butter serves six to eight as a finishing butter on grilled steak, chops or fish, or spread thinly for sandwiches. Roll in parchment and chill briefly if you want neat coins, but cut and serve the same day.
Compound butters — butter creamed with a single seasoning and served as a cold sauce — were a workhorse of the Victorian and Edwardian kitchen. The point of the entry is the technique, not the dish: once a cook could work a dry seasoning evenly into softened butter without breaking it, the same hand produced maître d'hôtel butter, anchovy butter, montpelier butter and the rest of the standard repertoire that a professional kitchen kept ready for grills. Grills and plainly cooked fish arrived at table without a cooked sauce, and a pat of seasoned butter melting over the top did the work of one at a fraction of the labour — which is much of why these preparations survive on restaurant menus while so much else in this book does not. The book is careful to note that the butter should be served "as soon as prepared."