Sometimes it feels good to get a little fancy at home. But fancy doesn’t need to be difficult. Quite the contrary, the simple things in life are usually the best and that’s just the case with Mâitre d’Hôtel Butter! You might know it as “hotel butter,” and might have had it brought to your table in more, ahem, elegant establishments. But really it’s made up of just four ingredients and the perfect thing for elevating steak, fish, chicken, vegetables — or just bread! — right at home.

What Ingredients Do You Need for Mâitre d’Hôtel Butter?

Just four things! You’ll need:

• Butter! The better the butter, the better the end result.
• Fresh parsley.
• Garlic.
• A lemon.

(And salt and pepper, but I’m not counting those in the four ingredient tally.)

How Do You Make Mâitre d’Hôtel Butter?

You don’t need a food processor, you don’t need a blender… you don’t need anything fancy. Just grab a knife, a cutting board, and a bowl and a spoon.

Chop up that parsley nice and fine, mince that garlic, and then put those into a bowl with the softened butter, a squeeze of lemon juice and stir it all together really well.

Give it a taste and season it with salt and pepper. If you started with unsalted butter, you’ll need a touch more salt here, but go by taste.

That’s it, you made fancy compound butter! To both save and serve it, spoon the butter into the center of a piece of plastic wrap and then roll that plastic into a nice little log. Twist off the ends and chill it in the fridge until you’re ready to use it.

You want to wait until it’s firm, but if you’re in a hurry, you can pop it in the freezer for a half-hour or so to speed things along.

How Do You Use Mâitre d’Hôtel Butter?

The world is your oyster. You literally could put it on oysters.

But mostly, it’s great to top proteins like steak, chicken, or fish right as they’re done cooking. As the butter melts, it creates a little sauce for the meat that’s unbelievably delicious.

It’s also absolutely wonderful spread on bread or rolls. And it really levels up basic roasted, steamed, or sautéed vegetables!

The question is more, what can’t you do with it? Enjoy!