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Sauce

Cooked Fine Herbs

A buttery sauce of finely chopped onion, 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

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

  2. In a saucepan, melt the butter and add the chopped onion.

  3. Cover the pan and cook slowly without browning the onion.

  4. Once cooked, add the chopped parsley and mushrooms.

  5. Cook until the moisture is reduced.

  6. 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

Butter
Gives the onion a rich base and carries flavour as it cooks gently.
Mushrooms
Add earthy flavour and moisture that cooks down to a concentrated texture.
Veal glaze
Adds concentrated savoury depth and body to the sauce.

The step that matters

Cook the onion without browning. Covering the pan and cooking slowly keeps the onion sweet and pale. Browning would add bitter, toasted notes that change the sauce's clean 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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