Why it works: Chervil and lemon match in chemistry and in kitchens. They rank in the top 3% of all ingredient pairs, and cooks put them together in 358 recipes. Both carry coumarin, which smells sweet, hay. The science ↓
Chervil Sauce
Ingredients
Directions
Pick the chervil leaves and place them in a saucepan.
Add a few spoonfuls of stock and simmer until nearly reduced to a glaze.
Stir in the coulis according to the desired quantity of sauce.
Squeeze in the lemon juice just before serving.
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.
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Chervil + lemontop 3% of all pairsSmell alikestrongCooked together358 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
- Chervil leaves
- Provide the herbal aroma that defines the sauce.
- Stock
- Adds liquid and savoury depth as it reduces to a glaze.
- Coulis
- Adds body and concentrated flavour to the sauce.
- Lemon juice
- Adds acidity that brightens the sauce and balances richness.
The step that matters
Reducing the stock to a glaze. If the stock reduces too far it becomes sticky and concentrated, while too little leaves the sauce thin. Watching it closely keeps the flavour balanced before the coulis is added.
“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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