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
Prepare drawn butter as directed.
Dip the parsley into boiling water for a few seconds.
Chop the parsley finely.
Finish and serve
Stir the chopped parsley into the drawn butter a few minutes before serving.
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 fresh, green herbal aroma and flavour to the butter sauce.
- Drawn butter
- Forms the rich fat base that carries the parsley flavour and gives the sauce its body.
The step that matters
Dipping the parsley in boiling water. A brief dip in boiling water helps the parsley keep a bright green colour. Leaving it too long can dull the colour and soften the leaves, so keep the dip to a few seconds.
“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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