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Sauce

Parsley Sauce

A green sauce made from boiled parsley, milk, butter, and seasonings.

From an old cookbook · modernised transcription
From a historical cookbook (Internet Archive) · 7 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 parsley

  1. Wash the parsley.

  2. Boil the parsley with the stems in minimal water.

  3. Add the baking soda to keep the parsley green.

  4. Once tender, remove the parsley from the water and save the water.

  5. Pick the leaves from the stems.

  6. Chop the leaves finely.

Make the sauce

  1. Add enough rich milk to the saved water.

  2. Add the butter.

  3. Season with salt.

  4. Season with pepper.

  5. Stir in the chopped parsley.

  6. Thicken the sauce.

  7. Cook for a few minutes, being careful not to make it too thick.

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. Parsley + buttertop 15% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together28,563 recipes

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

  4. Egg + buttertop 17% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together118,967 recipes

    Shared aroma: decanal (soap, orange peel).

  5. Milk + eggtop 18% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together88,785 recipes

    Shared aroma: 2-nonenal (fatty, green).

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

What each ingredient does

Parsley
Provides the main flavour and the green colour of the sauce.
Baking soda
Helps the parsley keep its bright green colour during boiling.
Rich milk
Forms the creamy liquid base that the sauce thickens from.
Butter
Adds richness and a smooth, silky mouthfeel to the sauce.

The step that matters

Cook for a few minutes without over-thickening. Once the sauce has thickened, it can become too stiff as it cools and thickens further. Stopping the cooking at the right point keeps it pourable and smooth.

Swap the parsley

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

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

Fit is the average pairing score against milk, egg, butter, 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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