Skip to main content
Main

Montpellier Butter

A butter blended with watercress, parsley, chervil, chives, tarragon, shallots, spinach, capers, gherkins, garlic, anchovies, eggs, oil, salt, and cayenne.

From an old cookbook · modernised transcription
From a historical cookbook (Internet Archive) · 17 ingredients
Jump to recipe ↓

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 ↓

Montpellier Butter

Ingredients

Directions

Prepare the herbs

  1. Blanch the watercress, parsley, chervil, chives, and tarragon in boiling water.

  2. Add the chopped shallots and spinach leaves, then drain and cool.

  3. Press the mixture in a towel to remove excess water.

Make the paste

  1. Pound the mixture in a mortar with the pressed capers, gherkins, garlic, and anchovies.

  2. Mix the paste with the butter until smooth.

Finish the butter

  1. Add the yolks of the boiled eggs and the raw eggs gradually, then pour in the oil.

  2. Strain the mixture through a fine sieve.

  3. Stir the butter well with a wooden spoon and season with salt and cayenne.

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

    Shared aroma: coumarin (sweet, hay).

  3. Watercress + cherviltop 1% of all pairs
    Smell alikestrong
    Cooked together59 recipes

    Shared aroma: coumarin (sweet, hay).

  4. Chervil + chivetop 1% of all pairs
    Smell alikestrong
    Cooked together370 recipes

    Shared aroma: coumarin (sweet, hay).

  5. Chervil + caperstop 1% of all pairs
    Smell alikestrong
    Cooked together135 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

Butter
Provides the rich fat base and a smooth, spreadable body.
Raw eggs
Emulsify with the oil and help bind the butter into a smooth mixture.
Boiled egg yolks
Add richness and help stabilise the emulsion with the oil.
Oil
Adds fat and smoothness, loosening the mixture while staying emulsified.
Parsley
Supplies most of the fresh herb flavour and green colour.
Anchovies (in the method)
Add salty, savoury depth that rounds out the herbs.

The step that matters

Add the eggs gradually before the oil. Egg yolks are natural emulsifiers. Adding them slowly lets them absorb the oil and butter fat gradually, so the mixture stays smooth instead of splitting into greasy droplets.

Swap the spinach

How well each one fits the dish's main ingredients (watercress, parsley, chervil, chive, tarragon, shallot, capers):

  1. Beetrootfits better
  2. Lettucefits better
  3. Welsh onionfits better
  4. Spinachthe original

Fit is the average pairing score against watercress, parsley, chervil, chive, tarragon, shallot, capers. 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.

More herb butter recipes

Lemon 4 See all 14 →

You might also like

Spinach SoupSpinach Soup50 recipesCream of SpinachCream of Spinach29 recipesCreamed Spinach SoupCreamed Spinach Soup19 recipesSpinach and EggsSpinach and Eggs8 recipes