Compound Butters

I can only imagine how terrified nutritionists are just by reading the title of this post, sorry.  I’m a chef and butter is my friend, what can I say 🙂  HOWEVER I do believe butter should be eaten in moderation, so please don’t go overboard.  It’s undeniable that butter ads such great flavor and body to just about anything, and there are NO substitutes for that.  Compound butters give you the chance to enhance the flavor department even more and not too mention you can get really creative with this.  Make a spicy butter for some grilled corn, a truffle butter for some roasted potatoes or even an orange-honey butter to top of some flapjacks.  The French definitely got it right in the cuisine department with stepping up all of their sauces, proteins, vegetables, etc. with a little butter at the end.  I can tell you for a fact that I’m not a huge fan of dumping globs of butter and gallons of cream on everything, but I do like a little bit, and little goes a long way.  There is nothing better than tasting the natural state of some braised baby carrots with a little butter, salt and pepper.  It just ads that extra umph you may be looking for.  So the next time a recipe calls for butter I suggest changing it up a bit by flavoring up your butter with some complimenting ingredients.  I know this is a lot, but if you need any suggestions on what compound butter to make I can ALWAYS be reached at facebook.com/chefbillyparisi or at twitter.com/chefbillyparisi.