Bottarga Butter

With every action there is a reaction.

Last night there was a big reaction to Meat-Free Monday. The Beet-Green Pasta was swell, but I was lusting for flesh. I stopped by McCall's Meat & Fish, yesterday on the way to pick Fe. up from preschool. I can't begin to tell you how quickly I was seduced by a superbly marbled one-pound rib-eye.

I showed no restraint. I continued in that vein when I decided to cream up a batch of bottarga butter to anoint the bloody steak. Sheer decadence.

Bottarga -- for those of you not familiar with this orangey hued slab of bliss -- is dried, pressed grey mullet or tuna roe. It is used shaved, sliced or grated. My most frequent run-ins with the salty and pleasantly fishy delicacy is in Italian pasta preparations (look for a post on this soon!). Bottarga adds umami body to whatever dish it is enhancing.

When I purchased the bottarga initially, I was not thinking steak. However after thumbing through the latest Canal House Cooking release An Italian Summer, my eyes were opened to new bottarga possibilities. I was intrigued by the idea of a deluxe compound butter that used fish and citrus flavors.

The bottarga butter uses just three ingredients, butter, lemon zest, and grated bottarga. Simplicity and luxury. I figured I'd impress my husband and have something exciting to share with you, dear readers. I was not mistaken.

Wow! Bottarga butter is fantastic. There should be nothing keeping you from making this for your next dinner party (except the fact that bottarga is a little spendy -- a special occasion ingredient). You will impress for sure.

The citrus flavor is bright and zesty, and butter melting over charred steak should always be encouraged. The grated bottarga adds a full-body flavor without tasty fishy or funky. It's almost difficult to pinpoint exactly how it tastes. It is subtle and marvelous.

Will you trust me on this?

Again, this is a cinchy three ingredient recipe. You soften the butter, zest a lemon, grate the bottarga and smash it all together. That is it. Compellingly simple, right?

You can find bottarga at specialty food shops or on-line at Amazon. Hop to it! I promise, you won't be sorry.

Bottarga Butter

8 ounces butter softened

Zest of one lemon

1 ounce grated bottarga

Mix the ingredients together with a wooden spoon until well combined. Serve over just grilled steak or perhaps you could try it on hot pasta.

Enough for 6 steaks

Sriracha Butter

I bumped into a review of Randy Clemens' The Sriracha Cookbook on MattBites a week ago. I immediately opened another window in Safari and raced to Amazon. Given my penchant for all things spicy, I was punching the Two-Day One-Click button with no hesitation.

I am a lover of Sriracha. Obviously great with pho or ramen, or spring rolls, I adore it on eggs. My usage of this garlicky hot sauce has been primarily to complement Asian food. This compact cookbook appears to promise a whole host of other possibilities for the famed rooster sauce.

I've had The Sriracha Cookbook in my mitts for less than a week, so I haven't had much of an opportunity to test it out. I am anxious to try the Maple-Sriracha Sausage Patties, the Bacon-Sriracha Cornbread and the Piquant Pulled Pork (enthusiastically reviewed here).

Randy Clemens has a lot of creative ideas for condiments like Sriacha Tzatziki and Sriracha Pesto. I decided to test the waters with his simple yet rather brilliant recipe for Sriracha Butter.

Compound butter in general is a very good thing to have on hand. It lends excitement to steak, corn-on-the-cob, pasta or a ho-hum chicken breast. But truth be told, it would never have occurred to me to add Sriracha to the mix.

The ingredients and the process are simple. Butter, minced garlic, chopped parsley and Sriracha are all you need. A Kitchen-Aid is helpful, but you really just need to mash the ingredients together thoroughly to get the job done. You roll the butter up in plastic wrap and chill it and that's all. It keeps in the fridge for up to a couple of weeks and in the freezer for far longer.

Now you have a dinner-enhancer at your disposal. I sliced off two rounds to top our rib-eye steaks last night. And, wow! The butter is far mellower than a big squirt of Sriracha. It is richer and more complex. It imparts heat, but not the mouth-burning variety. The parsley adds a fresh element. And the garlic, well let's just say that a first date after a pat of this butter would be a very bad idea, indeed.

Sriracha Butter

1/2 cup (1 stick) unsalted butter, at room temperature

2 tablespoons Sriracha

1 clove garlic, minced

1 tablespoon chopped fresh flat-leaf parsley

Using a wooden spoon or in the bowl of a stand mixer equipped with a paddle attachment, blend the butter with the Sriracha, garlic, and parsley until completely combined.

Scoop the butter onto a sheet of plastic wrap. Roll the plastic around the butter, forming a log about 1 inch in diameter. Wrap up tightly.

Chill in the refrigerator for at least an hour. Once hard, the butter may be sliced and served on meat, sweet potatoes, corn-on-the-cob or tossed into hot pasta or rice. The butter keeps in the refrigerator for up to 2 weeks or in the freezer for 6 months.

Dinner Diary: 7/13/10 -- Hanger Steak with Compound Butter

• Sautéed Curly Kale with Red Pepper and Garlic
• Charred Shishito Peppers from Jacqueline and Fe's Garden
• McCall's Hanger Steak with Compound Butter

Returning to the idea of reinventing dishes with sauces and other clever finishing touches, I dug deep into the recesses of my memory on Tuesday night.

Back in Santa Cruz, when I worked in a restaurant, we made a fair amount of compound butter. We used it to finish many dishes, but Stilton butter on New York steak was the biggest hit.

Compound butter is easy to make. You can use it on steamed vegetables, grilled chicken, pastas, and it is especially nice on steak.

You simply soften butter, preferably a high fat content European butter, and add assorted flavorings of your choosing. Garlic, shallots, fresh herbs, wine, and blue cheese are some of the typical stars of compound butter.

Smash it all together and slather it on whatever you please. Corn on the cob would be spectacular with compound butter smeared on it.

You can refrigerate it for a few days or you can roll into a log in wax paper and freeze it for future use. Simply slice off a round for your next grilled rib-eye or baked salmon fillet.

Tuesday Night's Compound Butter

6 tablespoons softened European butter

1 clove garlic, minced

1 small shallot, minced

A handful of fresh parsley and tarragon, chopped

Salt and freshly ground pepper

Cream the butter a bit, until well softened. Add the garlic, shallot, and herbs. Mix until well-combined. Season to taste with salt and pepper.