Ravigotte Butter

This is a one-line variation, and it only makes sense read against the compound butter printed immediately before it in the book — almost certainly a Montpellier-style butter, which pounds blanched green herbs with butter along with chopped gherkins, capers, anchovy and hard-boiled egg yolk. Strip those four out, add more butter, and what remains is a plain green herb butter.

• You need the preceding recipe"Made as above" is not optional shorthand; without the parent recipe you have no herbs, no proportions and no method. Read the entry above this one first and work from it, deleting the pickles, capers, anchovies and eggs as instructed.
• The herbs are the whole dishRavigote butter is usually built on some combination of tarragon, chervil, chives and burnet, sometimes with parsley and a little shallot, though the parent recipe above is what actually governs here. With the anchovy and egg gone there is little else carrying flavour, so use fresh herbs generously and taste for salt at the end — the removed anchovy was probably doing much of the seasoning.
• Blanch and shockIf the parent recipe calls for blanching the greens, do it in heavily salted water for under a minute, then plunge into ice water and squeeze bone dry. This sets the colour and keeps the finished butter green rather than khaki; wet herbs will make the butter break.
• "Four ounces more of butter"Four ounces is one US stick, half a cup — 115 g. It is added to the quantity in the recipe above, so the final weight depends entirely on that; the line gives no independent total.
• Sieve if you want it smoothA mortar leaves fibre behind. Pressing the finished butter through a fine sieve, or blitzing herbs and butter in a food processor and then sieving, gives a smooth green paste for coating and piping.
• Serving and keepingRoll in parchment into a cylinder, chill firm, and cut coins to melt over grilled fish, steak or boiled vegetables. It keeps about five days refrigerated and freezes well for a couple of months.