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Tarragon Butter
Mince some tarragon leaves, put one tablespoonful of them into a mortar, pound well and work in one-fourth pound of butter, a squeeze of lemon juice, and salt and pepper to taste. Rub the preparation through a fine hair-sieve and it is then ready for use, and should be served with soles and mackerel.
A compound butter of the classic French type, meant to be sliced cold onto hot fish. Nothing here is difficult; the only real work is getting the tarragon fine enough that it disappears into the butter.
- QuantitiesOne-fourth pound of butter is 4 oz (1 stick, about 115 g). A tablespoon of minced tarragon leaves is roughly the yield of a small handful of sprigs, stripped. That ratio is assertive but correct for oily fish.
- The mortar is the pointPounding, not chopping, is what releases the tarragon's anise oils into the fat. A food processor works, but pulse in short bursts and keep the butter cool or it will break into a greasy paste rather than staying emulsified.
- Butter temperatureWork with butter at cool room temperature, around 65F. Softened butter takes the herb evenly; butter that has been melted separates and sets grainy rather than smooth, so it makes a poor sliceable roll.
- The hair sieveA hair-sieve was a fine mesh of woven horsehair, the standard fine strainer before wire gauze. A fine nylon or stainless drum sieve does the same job: pressing the butter through removes the fibrous stem bits and gives a smooth green paste. Skip it and the butter is still good, just speckled and slightly stringy.
- Tarragon to useFrench tarragon, not Russian, which grows more vigorously and tastes of almost nothing. Dried tarragon is not a substitute here; the whole effect depends on the fresh oils.
- Shaping and keepingRoll the finished butter in parchment into a cylinder, chill until firm, and cut coins to lay on the fish as it comes off the heat. It keeps a week refrigerated and three months frozen, though the colour dulls after a few days.
- YieldAbout 1/2 cup, enough to dress six to eight fillets. Sole and mackerel are the recipe's suggestions and both are sound: one because it is delicate and needs seasoning, the other because tarragon and acid cut its richness.
Compound butters, the beurres composés of the French repertoire, were a staple of professional kitchens precisely because they were made in advance and held: a cook could finish a plate of grilled fish in seconds with a coin of cold, flavoured butter, no sauce station required. Escoffier codified dozens of them, and tarragon butter sits in the same family as maître d'hôtel butter (parsley and lemon) and anchovy butter. The pairing with mackerel reflects a practical logic more than fashion, since tarragon's anise note and a squeeze of lemon both work against the oiliness of a dark-fleshed fish. The hair-sieve in the instructions dates the text as clearly as anything in it: sieves of woven horsehair were standard equipment in nineteenth-century kitchens and were largely displaced by drawn-wire mesh by the early twentieth.