crispy prosciutto toast with anchovy lemon butter

This toast is, if I do say so myself, exceptionally tasty—but it’s really an excuse for me to tell you about this anchovy lemon compound butter I can’t stop putting on every single thing. People disturbed by anchovies: hear me out. Minced and rolled into good butter with a bit of lemon, they’re the barely detectable backbone of a multipurpose flavour enhancer you can melt on steak, stir into pasta sauce, toss with roasted vegetables—or as here, spread on toast you top with crispy prosciutto, greens and a runny-yolked egg.

For the unininitated, compound butter is just butter with other stuff mixed in—often, but not necessarily, herbs and spices. This version uses anchovies because they’re an umami powerhouse that round out other flavours (which is why they’re so often used in dressings and pasta sauces). The lemon and garlic go a long way in offsetting any fishiness, which fades into the background anyway when it’s used as a component in your cooking. That said, the recipe is adjustable depending on your tolerance for anchovies.

Compound butter is also something chefs use, which I learned as a 21-year-old stage (the restaurant equivalent of an intern) in my (very) brief career in professional kitchens. Someone shouted “WE NEED COMPOUND BUTTER YESTERDAY” at me in the middle of service; I had tasted this restaurant’s signature version exactly once and had never been shown how to make it. Everyone was, of course, too busy for questions.

With the urgency of an Olympic sprinter on fire, I zipped into the walk-in, grabbed more or less random herbs, and finagled some Frankensteinian butter in a blur of panic and sweat (appetizing, I know). Sheepishly, I sidled up to the line with it to await judgement. The chef tasted it, added a fistful of salt—I was innocent of restaurant salting habits at the time—said “pretty okay,” and served it on steak. I took the win, but logged the incident as one of a thousand reasons I’m not gritty enough for restaurant work.

Fortunately, it works just as well in a home kitchen as it does a professional one. Arguably better when you subtract the panic and sweat. Any good compound butter is a flavour workhorse that, once made, sets you up for at a week of good eating. Add it anywhere a bit of umami and brightness would be a welcome touch, or just keep putting it on toast and finding new things to pile onto it. Here is a non-exhaustive list of things this particular one is perfect for:

• stirred into rice you’ll top with an egg and something green
• melted into pasta sauce before serving, or used at the beginning to saute your aromatics
• added to roasted vegetables (root veg, fennel or broccoli would work particularly well) just before serving
• melted on top of steak
• stirred into a pot of beans after cooking
• melted over roasted or boiled potatoes

Also, if you didn’t know how easy it is to turn thin strips of prosicutto into shaterringly crisp sheets of happiness, now you know. Two multipurpose techniques for the price of one recipe, people—this is how we become more efficient cooks.