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Butter, Fine Herbs

A butter mixture flavored with tarragon, chervil, chives, parsley, and salt, shaped into small balls.

From an old cookbook · modernised transcription
From a historical cookbook (Internet Archive) · 6 ingredients
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Why it works: Tarragon and chervil match in chemistry and in kitchens. They rank in the top 1% of all ingredient pairs, and cooks put them together in 824 recipes. Both carry estragole, which smells anise, licorice. The science ↓

Butter, Fine Herbs

Ingredients

Directions

Prepare the herbs

  1. Wash the herbs and place them in boiling water for 5 minutes.

  2. Drain and dry the herbs.

Make the butter

  1. In a mortar, combine the herbs with butter and salt.

  2. Pound the mixture until smooth.

  3. Rub through a fine sieve and form into small balls.

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. Tarragon + cherviltop 1% of all pairs
    Smell alikestrong
    Cooked together824 recipes

    Shared aroma: estragole (anise, licorice).

  2. Chervil + chivetop 1% of all pairs
    Smell alikestrong
    Cooked together370 recipes

    Shared aroma: coumarin (sweet, hay).

  3. Tarragon + parsleytop 1% of all pairs
    Smell alikestrong
    Cooked together1,563 recipes

    Shared aroma: estragole (anise, licorice).

  4. Tarragon + chivetop 1% of all pairs
    Smell alikestrong
    Cooked together589 recipes

    Shared aroma: coumarin (sweet, hay).

  5. Chervil + parsleytop 1% of all pairs
    Smell alikestrong
    Cooked together774 recipes

    Shared aroma: estragole (anise, licorice).

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

What each ingredient does

Butter
Carries the herb flavour and gives the finished butter its smooth, rich body.
Tarragon
Provides the main aromatic, slightly anise-like flavour of the butter.
Chervil
Adds a delicate, fresh herbal aroma to the butter.
Chives
Contributes a mild onion-like freshness to the flavour.
Parsley
Adds a clean, green herbal note and fresh colour.

The step that matters

Drain and dry the herbs. Any water left on the herbs will dilute the butter and can make the mixture watery and harder to form into smooth balls. Drying them well keeps the butter firm and concentrated in flavour.

Swap the parsley

How well each one fits the dish's main ingredients (tarragon, chervil, chive, butter):

  1. Capersfits better
  2. Parsleythe original
  3. Thymefits less well
  4. Marjoramfits less well

Fit is the average pairing score against tarragon, chervil, chive, butter. 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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