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Creamy Garlic Sauce

"This sauce is great on steak and chips. We have it a lot through the summer in Australia. Serve with a nice crisp salad makes a wonderful meal. Dried parsley may be used in place of the fresh."

By allrecipes · From Open Recipes · 7 ingredients
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Why it works: Garlic and parsley are a kitchen classic. They rank in the top 4% of all ingredient pairs, and 9,294 recipes mention both. Both carry beta-phellandrene, which smells minty, terpene. The science ↓

The recipe

4 servings
Prep2 min
Cook5 min

Ingredients

Contains: milk, wheat (auto-detected from the ingredients and method; we can miss things, so check labels)

Directions

Method written by CompKitchen from the ingredient list. Not the original author's method, not kitchen-tested.

  1. Whisk the cornstarch with half of the water in a small bowl until smooth and no lumps remain.

  2. Pour the heavy cream into a medium saucepan, add the chopped garlic and garlic powder, and heat over medium heat, stirring, until it just starts to simmer, about 2 minutes.

  3. Season the cream with salt and pepper to taste and stir well.

  4. Slowly whisk the cornstarch mixture into the simmering cream and keep stirring for 1 to 2 minutes until the sauce thickens.

  5. If the sauce is too thick, whisk in the remaining water a little at a time until it reaches the consistency you want.

  6. Remove the pan from the heat, stir in the chopped fresh parsley, and serve warm.

By allrecipes. Recipe from Open Recipes.

Explore the science

The flavor team

The pairs that carry this dish. Each one is judged two ways: how much aroma chemistry they share, and how many recipes mention both.

  1. Garlic + parsleytop 4% of all pairs
    Aroma overlapmoderate
    Mentioned together9,294 recipes

    Shared aroma: beta-phellandrene (minty, terpene).

  2. Parsley + peppertop 2% of all pairs
    Aroma overlapstrong
    Mentioned together34,118 recipes

    Shared aroma: 4'-methylacetophenone (bitter almond).

  3. Garlic + peppertop 5% of all pairs
    Aroma overlapmoderate
    Mentioned together27,044 recipes

    Shared aroma: beta-phellandrene (minty, terpene).

  4. Garlic + creamtop 12% of all pairs
    Aroma overlaplow
    Mentioned together3,076 recipes

    Shared aroma: acetic acid (sour, vinegar).

  5. Cream + peppertop 13% of all pairs
    Aroma overlaplow
    Mentioned together21,446 recipes

    Shared aroma: acetic acid (sour, vinegar).

Cream and pepper share little aroma chemistry, yet 21,446 recipes mention both: they likely work on texture and structure more than aroma.

Ranks compare each pair with 20,000 random ingredient pairs on CompKitchen. How we score pairs

Flavor stand-ins for the parsley

How well each one fits the dish's main ingredients (garlic, cream, pepper):

  1. Parsleythe original
  2. Celeryabout as good a flavor fit
  3. Basilabout as good a flavor fit
  4. Rosemaryabout as good a flavor fit

Fit is the average pairing score against garlic, cream, pepper. Candidates are from the same food group and used in at least 100 recipes. This compares flavor only: it does not check the job the ingredient does in the dish (bulk, moisture, acidity, structure).