Name: A Substitute for Parsley
Ingredients: pounded parsley seed; water; butter; spinach

Why it works: Parsley and spinach match in chemistry and in kitchens. They rank in the top 5% of all ingredient pairs, and cooks put them together in 1,025 recipes. Both carry trans-2-hexenal, which smells green, leafy. The science ↓

A Substitute for Parsley

Ingredients

pounded parsley seed
water
butter
spinach

Directions

Tie up a small amount of pounded parsley seed in a piece of muslin.
Boil the muslin bag in water for ten minutes.
Use the infused water to melt the butter.
If available, add spinach instead of 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.

Parsley + spinachtop 5% of all pairs

Smell alikestrong

Cooked together1,025 recipes

Shared aroma: trans-2-hexenal (green, leafy).
Parsley + buttertop 15% of all pairs

Smell alikemoderate

Cooked together28,563 recipes

Shared aroma: trans-2-hexenal (green, leafy).
Butter + spinachtop 24% of all pairs

Smell alikemoderate

Cooked together2,583 recipes

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