Lemon Horseradish Butter

Loved, loved, loved it! Simple, delicious, and very different. I served it with simple baked salmon fillets and everyone loved it. We eat a lot of fish, and this’ll be my go-to to serve with fish. I’m sure it’d also be delicious on beef.

Delicious and so simple to make, this compound butter is versatile enough to perk up anything from a slice of crusty bread to a grilled steak. I admit my favorite application is just slathered on some good bread. Use fresh horseradish if you can—the flavor is subtle and earthy and you’ll end up with a butter that won’t overwhelm more delicate foods.

This butter is a simple yet delicious enhancement for any dish that would benefit from horseradish. This would be great on a pan-seared steak or pork chop. I chose to use it on salt-encrusted baked potatoes. The recipe calls for a food processor, which would be just fine, but a wooden spoon or rubber spatula will work as well. Even doing this by hand—grating, chopping, zesting, and mixing—only took a few minutes. Very little work with a rich payoff.

This was an easy and delicious way to perk up a grilled steak and would be fabulous on so many other things, too. The horseradish was very easy to peel and cube and the food processor made quick work of chopping it up. The butter was easily incorporated and only took about 10 to 15 seconds with the processor running continuously. In fact, we enjoy horseradish so much in my home that I’d increase the amount next time to get a little more zing. Just make sure to put the butter in at the very end so the horseradish doesn’t lose its flavor.

This is the perfect compound butter for a big, thick, grilled juicy steak. We also enjoyed it on oven-roasted salmon. It’s important to follow the directions precisely—on my first hurried attempt I threw everything into the food processor at once and the horseradish never became fully incorporated. Once the horseradish is grated and you add the butter, it takes about 6 two-second pulses to incorporate. I used sea salt and it was quite salty; I think kosher salt would be too much.

Flavored butter is a speedy way of adding flavor to simple dishes—cleaning the food processor took longer than making this recipe. It took about 1 minute to process the horseradish, lemon zest, salt, and butter until creamy and smooth. The horseradish added a welcomed savory hot kick, but not overwhelmingly so, although the lemony flavor was too subtle for me. As it was barely detectable, I added more zest (from a second lemon) and more lemon juice (about 1 teaspoon) to the remaining butter (about 1 cup). This really seemed to enhance the flavor and complemented the horseradish. The parsley added an earthy herbaceousness, though chives would be great here, too. So far the butter has been used on grilled shrimp, but as there’s plenty left (thankfully), we’ll throw it under the skin of a chicken before roasting. It’d also be lovely over grilled asparagus or added to roasted root vegetables. Creamy mashed potatoes or white bean purée would surely benefit as well. I’ve a “log” pile of various butters in the freezer. Will make this again and add to my repertoire. I love this because it takes half a second to pull one out and vamp up a recipe on short notice if need be.