The easiest way to make compound butter is to mince all the flavorings and then cream them and the butter together with a fork, just as you would butter and sugar in making a cake. But if your butter is ice-cold (or frozen), use a small food processor to combine all the ingredients quickly; there will be some waste here, as you’ll never get all the butter out of the container and blade, but the process will take just seconds. Skirt steak, the long, thin band of wonderfully marbled muscle (actually the cow’s diaphragm), was not easy to get even a couple of years ago but is now almost ubiquitous. It ranges as high as ten dollars a pound, but can often be found for well under half that, especially at supermarkets. It’s a moist, juicy steak, but not exactly tender—a little chewier than good strip steak—and does not respond well to overcooking. If someone insists on having it cooked beyond medium-rare, take no responsibility.

　　

Ingredients

makes 4 servings

　　About 1 1/2 pounds skirt steak, cut into 4 portions

　　Salt and freshly ground black pepper

　　1/2 recipe of one of the compound butters on pages 307–308

　　

Step 1

Preheat a grill until very hot—so hot you can hold your hand over it for only a couple of seconds. (Or preheat the broiler or pan-grill the steak if you prefer.)

　　

Step 2

When the fire is ready, grill the steak for 2 minutes per side for rare, about a minute or two longer for medium-rare to medium. Season the steak with salt and pepper as it cooks. Let it rest for a few minutes after it comes off the grill before dressing it with the compound butter.

　　

Step 3

Spread each steak with about a tablespoon of the flavored butter and serve. Wrap and refrigerate or freeze the remaining butter for future use.

　　From Mark Bittman's Quick and Easy Recipes From the New York Times by Mark Bittman Copyright (c) 2007 by Mark Bittman Published by Broadway Books.Mark Bittman is the author of the blockbuster Best Recipes in the World (Broadway, 2005) and the classic bestseller How to Cook Everything, which has sold more than one million copies. He is also the coauthor, with Jean-Georges Vongerichten, of Simple to Spectacular and Jean-Georges: Cooking at Home with a Four-Star Chef. Mr. Bittman is a prolific writer, makes frequent appearances on radio and television, and is the host of The Best Recipes in the World, a 13-part series on public television. He lives in New York and Connecticut.