Café de Paris Compound Butter

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Café de Paris Butter Image Used Under Creative Commons License From highfoodality.com

Here at TFD, we strive to educate our Citizens about the great recipes – not only from all over the world, but lost in time as well.

The great French chefs of yore, the Giants of the 18th and 19th centuries such as Carême and Escoffier, prepared sauces and dishes of exquisite complexity and difficulty. These were also supremely delicious and form the backbone of the deserved reputation for French cuisine as the gold standard.

There is, however, a reason most of these recipes fell out of use – they are both complex and time-consuming. That said, I have an arsenal of hundreds of these recipes that I am itching to share with you.

This recipe is one of them.

Café de Paris butter is the most complex of all the so-called “compound” butters – butter with other items mixed in. This is the ultimate garnish for putting on a grilled steak (its original function) but it is also delicious spread on an English Muffin or melted over vegetables.

Quite distinct from the classic Café de Paris sauce are various compound butters commonly referred to as Café de Paris. These typically contain a mixture of herbs, spices, and other condiments such as mustard, marjoram, dill, rosemary, tarragon, paprika, capers, chives, curry powder, parsley, shallot, garlic, Worcestershire sauce, and anchovies, all whipped into the butter.

The resulting compound butter is shaped into a roll using aluminum foil and chilled. When the dish is served, a piece of the butter is sliced off and allowed to melt on the hot meat.

Is this recipe complex? Yes and no. It does use a lot of ingredients, but making it is actually not difficult.

My version of this recipe is – by far – the most ingredient-laden of any recipe I’ve ever found. I don’t remember where I actually found it, but it is one of my most treasured recipes. I hope it will be one of yours as well. 🙂

Battle on – The Generalissimo