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Chives Sauce

A green herb sauce made with watercress, chervil, chives, tarragon, broth, vinegar, butter, and flour.

From an old cookbook · modernised transcription
From a historical cookbook (Internet Archive) · 10 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 ↓

Chives Sauce

Ingredients

Directions

  1. In a saucepan, combine the watercress, chervil, chives, and tarragon.

  2. Add the broth, vinegar, salt, and pepper, then boil for 15 minutes.

  3. Remove from heat and melt the butter mixed with flour into the sauce, stirring until well 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. Watercress + cherviltop 1% of all pairs
    Smell alikestrong
    Cooked together59 recipes

    Shared aroma: coumarin (sweet, hay).

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

    Shared aroma: coumarin (sweet, hay).

  4. Watercress + chivetop 1% of all pairs
    Smell alikestrong
    Cooked together97 recipes

    Shared aroma: coumarin (sweet, hay).

  5. Watercress + tarragontop 1% of all pairs
    Smell alikestrong
    Cooked together108 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
Adds richness and body, and helps smooth the sauce.
Flour
Thickens the sauce so it clings to food.
Broth
Forms the liquid base of the sauce.
Vinegar
Adds acidity that brightens the herb flavor.

The step that matters

Adding the butter and flour mixture off the heat. Flour thickens best when it is whisked in smoothly. Adding the butter and flour mixture off the heat keeps it from clumping or scorching, which would leave lumps or a burnt taste.

Swap the chive

How well each one fits the dish's main ingredients (watercress, chervil, tarragon, vinegar, pepper, butter, flour):

  1. Shallotfits better
  2. Chivethe original
  3. Lettucefits about as well
  4. Beetrootfits less well

Fit is the average pairing score against watercress, chervil, tarragon, vinegar, pepper, butter, flour. 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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