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Parsley Sauce

A creamy sauce made with boiled parsley, milk, butter, flour, egg yolk, cream, vinegar, and seasonings.

From an old cookbook · modernised transcription
From a historical cookbook (Internet Archive) · 10 ingredients
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Why it works: Parsley and pepper 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 ↓

Parsley Sauce

Ingredients

Directions

Prepare the base

  1. Boil the parsley in the milk for 5 minutes.

  2. Strain the mixture and add it to the butter and flour, rubbing them together.

Thicken and finish

  1. Beat the egg yolk with the cream and vinegar, then add salt and pepper.

  2. Stir in the chopped parsley.

  3. Add the mixture to the sauce when it reaches a boil, stirring hard for 1-2 minutes.

  4. Pour into a sauce bowl for immediate use.

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. Parsley + peppertop 2% of all pairs
    Smell alikestrong
    Cooked together34,122 recipes

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

  2. Milk + buttertop 7% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together81,283 recipes

    Shared aroma: (z)-4-heptenal (biscuit, cream).

  3. Butter + creamtop 8% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together41,516 recipes

    Shared aroma: delta-dodecalactone (sweet, creamy).

  4. Butter + flourtop 12% of all pairs
    Smell alikelow
    Cooked together124,287 recipes

    Shared aroma: isobutyraldehyde (malty, green).

  5. Parsley + flourtop 12% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together16,675 recipes

    Shared aroma: isobutyraldehyde (malty, green).

Butter and flour barely smell alike, yet cooks put them together in 124,287 recipes: they work on texture and structure more than aroma.

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

What each ingredient does

Parsley
Provides the main fresh, green herbal flavour and aroma of the sauce.
Milk
Forms the liquid base that the flour thickens and carries the parsley flavour.
Butter
Adds fat for richness and a smooth, silky mouthfeel.
Flour
Starch thickens the liquid as it heats, giving the sauce body.
Egg yolk
Egg proteins add further thickening and enrich the sauce when heated gently.
Cream
Adds richness and body, softening the sauce's texture.

The step that matters

Add the egg mixture at a boil while stirring hard. Egg yolk thickens through its proteins, which can scramble or grain if they meet heat unevenly. Stirring vigorously disperses the yolk through the hot sauce so it thickens smoothly and evenly.

Swap the parsley

How well each one fits the dish's main ingredients (milk, butter, flour, egg, cream, vinegar, pepper):

  1. Nutmegfits better
  2. Tarragonfits about as well
  3. Cinnamonfits about as well
  4. Parsleythe original

Fit is the average pairing score against milk, butter, flour, egg, cream, vinegar, pepper. 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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