Stilton Butter a more difficult way.

This is another compound butter based on a recipe from the Morgan’s Sugar Mill cookbook. It is more nuanced and milder than the bfia version. Very, very good too.

-1 Tablespoon minced shallots
-¼ cup (2 fluid ounces) medium Madeira or Sherry, or tawny Port
-¼ cup (2 fluid ounces) beef stock or consommé
-½ cup heavy cream
-4 Tablespoons unsalted butter
-about 2 Tablespoons crumbled blue cheese
-1 Tablespoon Dijon mustard or 1 teaspoon prepared English mustard (Colman’s)
-¼ teaspoon cayenne

1. Cook the shallots and wine over high heat until the liquid has almost evaporated.
2. Add the stock or consommé and cream, and reduce the mixture by half: Reduce the heat to very low.
3. Meanwhile you have amalgamated the butter, cheese, mustard and cayenne in a food processor if you have one, more laboriously by hand if you do not.
4. Slowly whisk the flavored butter into the warm liquid a little at a time, adding more of the butter only as the prior installment of butter has dissolved to thicken the liquid. Check for salt (you should not need it), then chill to spoon onto steaks.

Note:

- For a more elegant butter, strain out the shallots – you will need to mash the mixture hard against the strainer to force it through – before chilling. We like the lumpy texture of the shallots, however, as much as we dislike the labor of removing them.