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Salsify, French Style

Salsify cooked with butter, salt, pepper, Allemande sauce, lemon juice, and parsley.

From an old cookbook · modernised transcription
From a historical cookbook (Internet Archive) · 7 ingredients
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Why it works: Lemon and parsley match in chemistry and in kitchens. They rank in the top 1% of all ingredient pairs, and cooks put them together in 14,037 recipes. Both carry beta-phellandrene, which smells minty, terpene. The science ↓

Salsify, French Style

Ingredients

Directions

Prepare

  1. Prepare and cook the salsify as directed in the previous recipe.

  2. Drain the salsify and place it in a flat saucepan with the butter.

Season and finish

  1. Season with salt and pepper, then toss over heat until moisture is reduced.

  2. Add the Allemande sauce and toss well to combine.

  3. Before serving, stir in the lemon juice and chopped parsley.

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. Lemon + parsleytop 1% of all pairs
    Smell alikestrong
    Cooked together14,037 recipes

    Shared aroma: beta-phellandrene (minty, terpene).

  2. Pepper + parsleytop 2% of all pairs
    Smell alikestrong
    Cooked together34,122 recipes

    Shared aroma: 4'-methylacetophenone (bitter almond).

  3. Pepper + lemontop 3% of all pairs
    Smell alikestrong
    Cooked together27,047 recipes

    Shared aroma: trans-2-nonenal (cardboard, fatty).

  4. Butter + saucetop 15% of all pairs
    Smell alikelow
    Cooked together15,338 recipes

    Shared aroma: ethanol (alcoholic, ethereal).

  5. Butter + parsleytop 15% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together28,563 recipes

    Shared aroma: trans-2-hexenal (green, leafy).

Butter and sauce barely smell alike, yet cooks put them together in 15,338 recipes: they work on texture and structure more than aroma.

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

What each ingredient does

Salsify
Forms the main body of the dish, carrying the texture and flavour of the vegetable.
Butter
Adds fat for richness and helps the salsify take on a glossy, savoury coating.
Allemande sauce
Supplies a creamy, velvety sauce that coats the salsify and adds richness.
Lemon juice
Adds acidity that brightens the buttery, creamy flavours.

The step that matters

Toss over heat until moisture is reduced. If the salsify still holds excess water when the sauce goes in, the sauce will thin and become watery instead of clinging to the vegetable. Reducing the moisture first lets the sauce coat it properly.

“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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