Skip to main content
Sauce

Beurre Noir

A sauce of butter, parsley, vinegar, lemon juice, salt, pepper, and parsley.

From an old cookbook · modernised transcription
By Tracy, Suzanne. [from old catalog] · From a historical cookbook (Internet Archive) · 6 ingredients
Jump to recipe ↓

Why it works: Parsley and lemon 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 ↓

Beurre Noir

Ingredients

Directions

Make the sauce

  1. Cook the butter in a saucepan until it boils.

  2. Add the parsley.

  3. Add the vinegar, lemon juice, salt, and pepper, then boil up once.

Serve

  1. Pour the sauce over fried or boiled fish before serving.

Nutrition, whole recipe (rough)

118Calories
1 gProtein
12 gFat
4 gCarbs
What these numbers assume: 5 portions
IngredientPortion assumedkcal
Butter1 tbsp (14g)102
Lemonjuice of 1 lemon (48ml)12
Vinegar1 tbsp (15ml) distilled3
Parsley1 tbsp chopped fresh (3.8g)1
Salt1 tsp (6g)0

One typical portion per ingredient; the recipe's quantities are not counted. A rough guide only, not for medical or dietary planning.

By Tracy, Suzanne. [from old catalog]. 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. See the original page.

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. Parsley + lemontop 1% of all pairs
    Smell alikestrong
    Cooked together14,037 recipes

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

  2. Butter + parsleytop 15% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together28,563 recipes

    Shared aroma: trans-2-hexenal (green, leafy).

  3. Butter + lemontop 16% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together41,227 recipes

    Shared aroma: 3-hexenal (apple, fruity).

  4. Parsley + vinegartop 16% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together6,477 recipes

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

  5. Vinegar + lemontop 20% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together7,334 recipes

    Shared aroma: acetic acid (sour, vinegar).

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

What each ingredient does

Butter
Provides richness and the fat base that carries the sauce's flavour.
Vinegar
Adds sharp acidity that cuts through the richness of the butter.
Lemon juice
Adds bright acidity and a fresh citrus aroma.
Minced parsley
Adds a fresh, herbal aroma and green flavour.

The step that matters

Cooking the butter until it boils. Butter's milk solids darken and can scorch quickly once the water has boiled off, so the butter must be watched closely to brown without burning.

“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.

You might also like

Hot Lemon Cream SauceHot Lemon Cream Sauce11 recipesWine Sauce (for stewed fruit)Wine Sauce (for stewed fruit)186 recipesCaper SauceCaper Sauce180 recipesBrown SauceBrown Sauce141 recipes