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Cooked Fine Herbs

A sautéed herb mixture of onion, butter, parsley, mushrooms, and veal glaze.

From an old cookbook · modernised transcription
From a historical cookbook (Internet Archive) · 5 ingredients
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Why it works: Butter and mushroom are a kitchen classic. They rank in the top 7% of all ingredient pairs, and cooks put them together in 12,525 recipes. Both carry trans-2-decenal, which smells waxy, orange. The science ↓

Cooked Fine Herbs

Ingredients

Directions

Prepare and cook

  1. Chop the onion finely or use half an onion and half a shallot.

  2. In a saucepan, combine the onion and butter, cover, and cook slowly without browning.

  3. Once cooked, add the parsley and mushrooms, and cook until the moisture is reduced.

Finish

  1. Stir in the veal glaze and transfer to an earthen bowl for future use.

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. Butter + mushroomtop 7% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together12,525 recipes

    Shared aroma: trans-2-decenal (waxy, orange).

  2. Onion + parsleytop 9% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together25,843 recipes

    Shared aroma: 2,4-decadienal (seaweed).

  3. Onion + mushroomtop 10% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together10,626 recipes

    Shared aroma: 2,4-decadienal (seaweed).

  4. Parsley + mushroomtop 11% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together6,132 recipes

    Shared aroma: 2,4-decadienal (seaweed).

  5. Mushroom + vealtop 14% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together2,446 recipes

    Shared aroma: 2,4-nonadienal (fatty, green).

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

What each ingredient does

Onion
Forms the sweet, aromatic base of the mixture as it softens slowly in butter.
Butter
Carries the onion's flavour and softens it gently without browning.
Mushrooms
Add earthy flavour, and their moisture is cooked off to concentrate the mixture.
Parsley
Adds fresh, green herbal aroma to the finished mixture.
Veal glaze
Adds concentrated savoury depth and body to the mixture.

The step that matters

Cook the onion slowly without browning. Gentle cooking softens the onion and releases its sweetness without caramelising it. Browning would add bitterness and a darker colour that changes the delicate herb flavour.

Swap the parsley

How well each one fits the dish's main ingredients (onion, butter, mushroom, veal):

  1. Garlicfits better
  2. Thymefits better
  3. Parsleythe original
  4. Capersfits about as well

Fit is the average pairing score against onion, butter, mushroom, veal. 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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