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Stewed Hops, with Sauce

Stewed hops are simmered in salted water and vinegar, then tossed with butter, spices, Allemaude sauce, lemon juice, and parsley, served with toast.

From an old cookbook · modernised transcription
From a historical cookbook (Internet Archive) · 13 ingredients
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Why it works: Lemon and parsley match in chemistry and in kitchens. They rank in the top 1% of all ingredient pairs, and cooks put them together in 14,037 recipes. Both carry beta-phellandrene, which smells minty, terpene. The science ↓

Stewed Hops, with Sauce

Ingredients

Directions

Prepare

  1. Cut young hop stems into 1-inch pieces and place them in cold water with lemon juice.

  2. In a saucepan, bring lightly salted water and a little vinegar to a boil.

  3. Add the hop pieces to the boiling water and cook until tender, then drain and dry on a napkin.

Season and serve

  1. In a saucepan, melt butter and season hops with coarse sea salt, black pepper, nutmeg, and sugar.

  2. Toss the hops over heat until warmed, then add a few spoonfuls of Allemaude sauce.

  3. Before serving, stir in a piece of butter, lemon juice, and chopped parsley until the butter melts.

  4. Garnish with small pieces of toast.

Recipe from a historical cookbook (Internet Archive).

Transcribed from a scanned cookbook and modernised for today's kitchens. Where the book gave no heat or time, or said "a moderate oven", the temperatures and times here may be modern equivalents rather than the book's own figures.

Explore the science

The flavor team

The pairs that carry this dish. Each one is judged two ways: how much their aromas overlap, and how often cooks already put them together.

  1. Lemon + parsleytop 1% of all pairs
    Smell alikestrong
    Cooked together14,037 recipes

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

  2. Pepper + parsleytop 2% of all pairs
    Smell alikestrong
    Cooked together34,122 recipes

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

  3. Lemon + peppertop 3% of all pairs
    Smell alikestrong
    Cooked together27,047 recipes

    Shared aroma: trans-2-nonenal (cardboard, fatty).

  4. Nutmeg + parsleytop 3% of all pairs
    Smell alikestrong
    Cooked together5,062 recipes

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

  5. Lemon + nutmegtop 5% of all pairs
    Smell alikestrong
    Cooked together11,318 recipes

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

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

What each ingredient does

Young hop stems
Provide the main vegetable, becoming tender when simmered in acidulated water.
Butter
Adds richness and a silky coating that carries the seasoning over the hops.
Allemaude sauce
Adds a creamy, rich sauce that moistens and flavours the hops.
Juice of 1 lemon
Adds acidity that brightens the buttery sauce and balances richness.

The step that matters

Cooking the hop pieces until tender. Hop stems turn tender only after simmering; undercooking leaves them fibrous, while overcooking makes them soft and waterlogged. Acidulated water keeps the cut pieces from browning, so they look fresh when served.

Swap the nutmeg

How well each one fits the dish's main ingredients (lemon, vinegar, butter, pepper, sugar, sauce, parsley):

  1. Tarragonfits better
  2. Thymefits better
  3. Dillfits better
  4. Nutmegthe original

Fit is the average pairing score against lemon, vinegar, butter, pepper, sugar, sauce, parsley. Candidates are from the same food group and used in at least 100 recipes.

“What each ingredient does” and “The step that matters” were written by Claude from this recipe’s own method and reviewed in samples by CompKitchen.

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