Name: Herb Sauce
Ingredients: 1 pint white wine sauce; 3 ounces shallot butter; 1 tablespoon parsley, chopped; 1 tablespoon chervil, chopped; 1 tablespoon tarragon, chopped; 1 tablespoon chives, chopped

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 ↓

Herb Sauce

Ingredients

1 pint white wine sauce
3 ounces shallot butter
1 tablespoon parsley, chopped
1 tablespoon chervil, chopped
1 tablespoon tarragon, chopped
1 tablespoon chives, chopped

Directions

Prepare 1 pint of white wine sauce.
Remove from heat and stir in 3 ounces of shallot butter.
Add 1 tablespoon each of chopped parsley, chervil, tarragon, and chives.
Serve with boiled or poached fish.

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.

Chervil + tarragontop 1% of all pairs

Smell alikestrong

Cooked together824 recipes

Shared aroma: estragole (anise, licorice).
Chervil + chivetop 1% of all pairs

Smell alikestrong

Cooked together370 recipes

Shared aroma: coumarin (sweet, hay).
Shallot + cherviltop 1% of all pairs

Smell alikestrong

Cooked together266 recipes

Shared aroma: coumarin (sweet, hay).
Shallot + chivetop 1% of all pairs

Smell alikestrong

Cooked together450 recipes

Shared aroma: 1-octen-3-ol (mushroom, earthy).
Shallot + tarragontop 1% of all pairs

Smell alikestrong

Cooked together602 recipes

Shared aroma: eucalyptol (eucalyptus, herbal).

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

What each ingredient does

White wine sauce: Forms the smooth liquid base that the other ingredients are stirred into.
Shallot butter: Adds richness and body, enriching the sauce as it is stirred in off the heat.
Parsley: Contributes fresh, green aroma and a mild herbal flavour.
Chervil: Adds a delicate, slightly anise-like aroma that suits fish.
Tarragon: Adds a distinct, slightly sweet anise aroma that gives the sauce its character.
Chives: Adds a mild onion-like freshness and bright colour at the finish.

Swap the parsley

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

Capersfits better
Parsleythe original
Thymefits about as well
Marjoramfits less well

Fit is the average pairing score against white wine, sauce, shallot, butter, chervil, tarragon, chive. 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.