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 the parsley
Wash the parsley in cold water.
Boil the parsley in salted water for 6-7 minutes.
Drain the parsley and chop the leaves finely.
Make the sauce
Stir the chopped parsley into the melted butter, using 2 teaspoons of parsley for every ½ cup of butter.
Serve with boiled chicken or fish.
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 the herbal aroma and fresh green flavour that defines the sauce.
- Butter
- Adds richness and a smooth, fatty texture that carries the parsley flavour.
The step that matters
Boil the parsley for 6-7 minutes. Long boiling breaks down the green pigment chlorophyll, dulling the colour and washing out fresh flavour, so the parsley should be drained promptly once cooked.
“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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