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Dessert

Montpellier Butter

Butter made with anchovy, egg yolk, parsley, fennel, shallot, capers, gherkin, spinach, and salad oil.

From an old cookbook · modernised transcription
From a historical cookbook (Internet Archive) · 12 ingredients
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Why it works: Shallot and capers match in chemistry and in kitchens. They rank in the top 1% of all ingredient pairs, and cooks put them together in 405 recipes. Both carry coumarin, which smells sweet, hay. The science ↓

Montpellier Butter

Ingredients

Directions

Prepare the herbs

  1. Blanch the parsley, fennel, and spinach, then strain very dry.

Make the butter

  1. Pound all ingredients together until well combined.

  2. Rub the mixture through a fine sieve.

  3. Chill in the refrigerator until firm.

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. Shallot + caperstop 1% of all pairs
    Smell alikestrong
    Cooked together405 recipes

    Shared aroma: coumarin (sweet, hay).

  2. Parsley + caperstop 1% of all pairs
    Smell alikestrong
    Cooked together1,550 recipes

    Shared aroma: coumarin (sweet, hay).

  3. Parsley + shallottop 1% of all pairs
    Smell alikestrong
    Cooked together3,737 recipes

    Shared aroma: 2,4-decadienal (seaweed).

  4. Parsley + fenneltop 1% of all pairs
    Smell alikestrong
    Cooked together625 recipes

    Shared aroma: myristicin (spice, warm).

  5. Capers + spinachtop 1% of all pairs
    Smell alikestrong
    Cooked together99 recipes

    Shared aroma: coumarin (sweet, hay).

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

What each ingredient does

Fresh butter
Provides the fat base that carries the flavours and sets firm when chilled.
Hard boiled egg yolk
Adds richness and body, helping the mixture bind into a smooth paste.
Anchovy
Adds a salty, savoury depth that rounds out the herbs.
Parsley
Contributes fresh, green aroma and colour to the butter.
Capers
Add a sharp, briny acidity that cuts through the richness of the butter.
Salad oil
Keeps the butter softer and easier to spread when chilled.

The step that matters

Strain the blanched herbs very dry. Excess water left in the herbs would dilute the butter fat, making the mixture loose and less able to set firm when chilled.

Swap the fennel

How well each one fits the dish's main ingredients (butter, anchovy, egg, parsley, shallot, capers, spinach):

  1. Tarragonfits better
  2. Thymefits better
  3. Nutmegfits better
  4. Fennelthe original

Fit is the average pairing score against butter, anchovy, egg, parsley, shallot, capers, spinach. 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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