Not Plain Butter: The Flavorful Topping Bobby Flay Recommends For Ribeye Steak

While Bobby Flay never sleeps on technique, he's famous for pairing unorthodox, potent seasonings with classic recipes. His use of gochujang on ribeye is no different, and while he often reaches for it for a steak glaze, he also loves to incorporate it into a compound butter for an easier, just as flavorful recipe.

Gochujang combines fermented soybeans, salt, chiles, and a wee bit of sugar into an all-in-one seasoning. The remaining ingredients in the compound butter, a mix of savory, sweet, salty, and aromatic seasonings, all work together to create a comprehensive blend that goes far beyond a simple finishing pat of butter. While some ingredients shine through the marbling of a ribeye, others contribute to the decadent richness most folks love in the cut. All the elements work together to create a full range of flavors that are easy to apply, especially if you make it ahead of time. 

Adding butter at the end of cooking is an ideal way to prepare most steaks because it wraps the whole thing up with a final layer of moisture and the subtle sweetness of dairy fat, contributing to a velvety mouthfeel. But since ribeye already has ample marbling, Flay's gochujang compound butter ensures there will be plenty of new flavors to level it up even further. The intensity of the paste goes a long way toward cutting through the beef fat, ensuring your meal doesn't taste too one-note.

Butter is a bit delicate with heat, and compound butter is even more so. Applying Bobby Flay's gochujang mixture properly and allowing it just enough time to reach the right temperature is key to getting the most out of it.

One of the biggest disadvantages of cooking steak on a grill is that you can't mix butter with dripped juices and crispy burnt bits and then baste your beef. Still, Flay doesn't let that get in the way and gives the tops of his ribeyes a final smear with the compound butter before letting them sit on the grill for another minute or two. This gives the topping just enough time to melt over the meat. You can even move your steak to a cooler part of the grill and put the lid back on. Using a two-zone grill setup is ideal to keep your steak from overcooking while rendering all those final flavors. 

Depending on your rub, you may want to make small tweaks to Flay's compound butter. Incorporating galangal rather than ginger introduces some added sharpness to cut through the heaviness of even the most well-marbled steak. If you want to lean into the heat, a sprinkle of gochugaru, a spice similar to gochujang, adds a bit of capsaicin without changing the flavor too much. Don't be afraid to add a bit of fish sauce to the compound butter, too, to beautifully beef up the umami notes in your steak.