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Sauce

Chivey Sauce

A sauce made by infusing poultry stock with herbs and chives, then adding velouté and green butter.

From an old cookbook · modernised transcription
From a historical cookbook (Internet Archive) · 8 ingredients
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Why it works: Chervil and tarragon 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 ↓

Chivey Sauce

Ingredients

Directions

Make the infusion

  1. Combine the boiling poultry stock with chervil, tarragon, parsley, pimpernel, and chives in a saucepan.

  2. Cover and let infuse for 10 to 12 minutes.

  3. Strain the mixture through a linen cloth into a bowl.

Finish the sauce

  1. Add the strained liquid to the velouté sauce.

  2. Boil the sauce and reduce it by a quarter.

  3. Stir in the green butter until melted and combined.

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. Chervil + tarragontop 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

Velouté sauce
Forms the base of the sauce, providing body and a smooth, thick texture.
Green butter
Adds richness and fat, giving the finished sauce a glossy, smooth finish.
Poultry stock
Supplies savoury liquid that carries the herb flavours into the sauce.
Chives
Contribute a mild onion-like aroma and fresh flavour to the infusion.

The step that matters

Boil the sauce and reduce it by a quarter. Reducing concentrates flavour and thickens the sauce. Boiling too little or too long changes its strength and consistency, so watch the volume closely.

Swap the parsley

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

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

Fit is the average pairing score against chervil, tarragon, chive, sauce, 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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