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Beurre De Moxtpellier--montpellier Butter

A butter flavored with parsley, tarragon, chervil, burnet, chives, spinach, egg yolks, anchovies, gherkins, capers, salt, cayenne, and tarragon vinegar.

From an old cookbook · modernised transcription
From a historical cookbook (Internet Archive) · 14 ingredients
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Why it works: Tarragon and chervil match in chemistry and in kitchens. They rank in the top 1% of all ingredient pairs, and cooks put them together in 824 recipes. Both carry estragole, which smells anise, licorice. The science ↓

Beurre De Moxtpellier--montpellier Butter

Ingredients

Directions

Prepare the herbs

  1. Blanch the parsley, tarragon, chervil, burnet, chives, and spinach.

  2. Press the herbs to extract all moisture.

Make the butter

  1. Pound the herbs in a mortar with the hard-boiled yolks, anchovies, gherkins, and capers.

  2. Add the butter and season with salt, cayenne, and tarragon vinegar.

  3. Rub the mixture through a fine sieve.

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. Tarragon + cherviltop 1% of all pairs
    Smell alikestrong
    Cooked together824 recipes

    Shared aroma: estragole (anise, licorice).

  2. Chervil + chivetop 1% of all pairs
    Smell alikestrong
    Cooked together370 recipes

    Shared aroma: coumarin (sweet, hay).

  3. Chervil + caperstop 1% of all pairs
    Smell alikestrong
    Cooked together135 recipes

    Shared aroma: coumarin (sweet, hay).

  4. Chive + caperstop 1% of all pairs
    Smell alikestrong
    Cooked together245 recipes

    Shared aroma: coumarin (sweet, hay).

  5. Tarragon + caperstop 1% of all pairs
    Smell alikestrong
    Cooked together379 recipes

    Shared aroma: coumarin (sweet, hay).

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

What each ingredient does

Butter
Provides fat and a smooth, rich body that carries the herb flavour.
Hard-boiled egg yolks
Add richness and a creamy texture that helps bind the pounded mixture.
Anchovies
Add savoury depth and salt that rounds out the herbs.
Capers
Add a sharp, briny acidity that brightens the butter.

The step that matters

Press the herbs to extract all moisture. Leftover water from the blanched herbs can make the butter watery and cause it to separate, so the herbs should be squeezed dry before pounding.

Swap the spinach

How well each one fits the dish's main ingredients (parsley, tarragon, chervil, chive, egg, capers, butter):

  1. Shallotfits better
  2. Lettucefits better
  3. Leekfits better
  4. Spinachthe original

Fit is the average pairing score against parsley, tarragon, chervil, chive, egg, capers, butter. 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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