Name: Bound the Table
Ingredients: a large piece of butter is put into a saucepan; one boil; salt; vinegar; pepper; parsley

Why it works: Pepper and parsley match in chemistry and in kitchens. They rank in the top 2% of all ingredient pairs, and cooks put them together in 34,122 recipes. Both carry 4'-methylacetophenone, which smells bitter almond. The science ↓

Bound the Table

Ingredients

Directions

reduce in a saucepan on the fire with the spices. Then it is strained, and butter and yolks of eggs being added, with salt to taste, the mixture is stirred for some time at a gentle heat.
In any form, however, this sauce is one of the most difficult to make with success ; and a great deal of practice will be required to ensure perfection.
So much for what is called Sauce Eollandaise ; the Hollanders themselves, however, affect a simpler prepara- tion to eat with their fish, and that is simply butter melted. A large piece of butter is put into a saucepan with the juice of a lemon, and a due quantity of pepper and salt. As soon as the butter is well liquefied it is allowed to settle, and poured out clear (from the sediment at the bottom of it) into a piping hot sauce- boat.
What is called Sauce a la Poulette is only plain melted butter, with rather more egg and lemon stirred into it, and the addition of a few button mushrooms.
When a larger quantity of mushrooms is used you have a Sauce aux Champignons, or mushroom sauce. This may be made white or brown by using as the foundation of it sauce blanche or sauce blonde. If you fry some slices of onions or shallots until they assume a very light brown colour, taking care by frequent stirring that none get burnt or done too much, and having added to them either broth or water q. sujf., and a small quantity of vinegar, let the whole give one boil, and then stir this mixture into a saucepan containing butter and floui’, as if to make plain melted butter, and add pepper, salt and some minced parsley, you will produce what is called Sauce au Pauvre Homme, “ poor man’s sauce,” the simplest form of several other sauces, which, in spite of their names, are only slight varieties of it — viz. :

Nutrition, whole recipe (rough)

112Calories

0 gProtein

12 gFat

2 gCarbs

What these numbers assume: 5 portions

Ingredient	Portion assumed	kcal
Butter	1 tbsp (14g)	102
Black Pepper	1 tsp ground (2.3g)	6
Vinegar	1 tbsp (15ml) distilled	3
Parsley	1 tbsp chopped fresh (3.8g)	1
Salt	1 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 Chevalley de Rivaz, Victor. 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.

Pepper + parsleytop 2% of all pairs

Smell alikestrong

Cooked together34,122 recipes

Shared aroma: 4'-methylacetophenone (bitter almond).
Vinegar + peppertop 14% of all pairs

Smell alikemoderate

Cooked together27,814 recipes

Shared aroma: 4'-methylacetophenone (bitter almond).
Butter + parsleytop 15% of all pairs

Smell alikemoderate

Cooked together28,563 recipes

Shared aroma: trans-2-hexenal (green, leafy).
Vinegar + parsleytop 16% of all pairs

Smell alikemoderate

Cooked together6,477 recipes

Shared aroma: 4'-methylacetophenone (bitter almond).
Butter + peppertop 21% of all pairs

Smell alikemoderate

Cooked together85,593 recipes

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