An orange compound butter for fish from Pottery by A. Potter
The slim pamphlet packed with recipes for pots, pastes and butters appeared in 1946, an unlikely year for so ambitious a compilation. Rationing then was even more severe than during the war but the whimsical pedant who assembled the recipes lamented the decline of the commercial potted foods of his childhood and therefore advocated a domestic culinary revolution of sorts. Or so he maintains; the sense of humor apparent from the title continues apace in the distinctly Old Fogey tone of the entertaining forward. We will return to Pottery in the fall but for now present this short recipe appropriate to this summer number.
“Grated rind of 1 orange; 1 dessertspoon orange juice; I teaspoon shredded blanched orange rind; 2 oz. butter; ½ teaspoon paprika; salt, pepper and 1 clove garlic.
Rub basin well with garlic, cream butter and work in other ingredients. Leave to harden.” (Pottery 25)
Notes:
-A dessertspoon amounts to about 2½ teaspoons, or a scant Tablespoon.
-Blanching the rind does not really add much; omit it if you choose.
-If, however, you have some orange bitters, shake a generous jolt into the buttermix.
-Rubbing a bowl in which food is prepared, or rubbing a salad bowl, with garlic is an old English practice that remained common in cookbooks past the middle of the twentieth century. It is a means to impart what sounds impossible, a subtle hint of the garlic.