Why it works: Parsley and butter are a kitchen classic. They rank in the top 15% of all ingredient pairs, and cooks put them together in 28,563 recipes. Both carry trans-2-hexenal, which smells green, leafy. The science ↓
Parsley Sauce
Ingredients
Directions
Prepare the parsley
Wash the parsley and pick off the leaves.
Boil the leaves in salted water for 3 minutes, then drain well.
Mince the parsley as finely as possible.
Make the sauce
Stir the minced parsley into the melted butter or white sauce and serve immediately.
Alternative method
Alternatively, boil the parsley for 10 minutes, chop small, and place in a tureen.
Pour the sauce over the parsley, then stir in small pieces of cold butter until melted.
Serve the parsley sauce in a tureen.
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.
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Parsley + buttertop 15% of all pairsSmell alikemoderateCooked together28,563 recipes
Shared aroma: trans-2-hexenal (green, leafy).
Ranks compare each pair with 20,000 random ingredient pairs on CompKitchen. How we score pairs
What each ingredient does
- Parsley
- Provides the green colour and fresh, herbal flavour of the sauce.
- White sauce
- Forms the creamy base that carries the parsley and gives the sauce body.
- Melted butter
- Adds richness and a smooth, silky mouthfeel to the sauce.
- Cold butter
- Stirred in off the heat, it adds gloss and richness to the sauce.
The step that matters
Boiling the parsley. Brief boiling keeps the leaves bright green, while longer heat breaks down chlorophyll and turns them dull olive. Drain well so excess water does not thin the sauce.
“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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