Garnish Your Steak With Compound Butter For Restaurant-Level Quality

What is it about eating a grilled ribeye at a steakhouse that beats the steaks you make at home? And how can you emulate restaurant-level steaks for your next dinner party? There are many tips for cooking steakhouse-style steaks, such as buying quality cuts of beef. But there's one way to elevate the flavor of your steak that doesn't blow your grocery budget: Finish your steaks off with a garnish of compound butter.

Compound butter is an unfussy way to bring extra flavor to many dishes, and there are a number of flavor combinations you can easily create based on your tastes. Use freshly chopped herbs, garlic, salt, and pepper to make your compound butter, and place it on your steak before serving. Or maybe you're lucky enough to have some black truffle salt to use in the butter. Aside from adding more flavor and richness to a steak, compound butter looks great as a garnish.

Making compound butter for your steaks at home is simple, as long as you start with the right base. Since the butter is being used to finish a dish, you're going to want to look for a one with a higher fat content than your standard stick of butter. It won't be used to simply grease a pan but to top a juicy, hearty cut of steak. Butter with a butterfat content higher than 82% will offer more in flavor and creamy goodness, plus, it holds its shape much better, which is needed when garnishing a steak.

When making the compound butter, be sure your butter is softened before adding your herbs for easy mixing. You can let the butter come to room temperature and mash it with a fork, but it's easier (and better) to break out the stand mixer or food processor for a the best texture.

While compound butter can be created with many different ingredients, you probably want to start by making a classic version: Fresh herbs and garlic. Fresh chopped parsley, basil, or thyme are fabulous choices to bring an earthy freshness to the heavy steak. Combine some or all of these herbs with minced garlic, and you simply can't go wrong.

If you like to regularly grill steaks at home, make an extra large batch of your compound butter and freeze it for later. By doing this you're essentially preserving the delicious flavors and potency of the fresh herbs in fat. Compound butter will hold extremely well in the freezer, and then you always have it on hand for steak night. (Just be sure to freeze it in individual servings.) With your compound butter at the ready, your homemade steaks are sure to impress, reaching restaurant-level quality from now on.