We are always looking for new and simple ways to jazz up our weekend staple: steaks on the grill. Our perpetual houseguests, Charles and Camilla, are not very fussy eaters. They like simple foods that we can prepare together in the time it takes to enjoy a convivial cocktail, or two. Surprisingly, our homemade Béarnaise sauce is easier to prepare than the Knorr powdered mix, which is good in hurricane emergencies, when all of the household cooking is done on the grill, but otherwise we prefer the homemade variety. Sometimes, even Charles and Camilla like to break out of our stodgy suburban routines, and try something au courant and edgy.
When Best Beloved fires up the grill and gets ready to sear our steaks to perfection, as is his wont, Charles is learning how to make compound butter. Camilla is splashing the olive oil around again, as she dresses the salad and tests the wine…
We used the snappy Butter Up article in the most recent Bon Appétit magazine as our inspiration, but fudged a little bit, because quite honestly, we did not have Nori Sesame, or Porcini or even Chipotle-Lime in the house. We are big believers in seeing what treasures the fridge might hold and what our humble container garden is currently producing. Luckily, we had lemons and fresh Cabot Creamery butter in the fridge and a cascade of fresh thyme spilling over the planter box.
Charles took the kitchen shears out to the planter and snipped a small fistful of thyme in a gingerly, loving fashion.
Even though Charles loves chopping with the big cleaver we persuaded him that it would save a little time, since the steaks were about to hit the grill, to toss all the ingredients in the little food processor. He added half a stick of salted butter to the thyme, and as much zest from the lemon as I could scrape off – about half of a teaspoon. Then he whirled the mixture around for 30 seconds or so, until everything looked completely blended. Then Charles scraped the butter mixture into a little glass bowl, and set it in the fridge to chill until the steaks were done.
Then we sat down to dinner, with crispy hash browns, Camilla’s salad, a knob of lemon-thyme butter on each steak and some divine red wine. We have a new weekend taste treat. Yumsters.
(We make hash browns according to the recipe that Ruth Reichl has written in her book Garlic and Sapphires, based on those she enjoyed at the Palm Restaurant. These are so good that the memory of what our family used to refer to as my “Hash Blacks” is fading from memory…)
https://www.epicurious.com/recipes/food/views/Sauce-Bearnaise-101870
https://www.bonappetit.com/recipes/2011/10/herb-lemon-zest-butter
“The March Hare took the watch and looked at it gloomily: then he dipped it into his cup of tea, and looked at it again: but he could think of nothing better to say than his first remark, `It was the best butter, you know.’”
– Lewis Carroll
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