Why it works: Tarragon and butter are a kitchen classic. They rank in the top 17% of all ingredient pairs, and cooks put them together in 1,572 recipes. Both carry anethole, which smells sweet, anise. The science ↓
Tarragon Butter
Ingredients
Directions
Prepare the tarragon
Blanch and cool the tarragon.
Drain and press it in a towel.
Pound the tarragon in a mortar.
Make the butter
Add the tarragon to the butter.
Strain the mixture through a fine sieve.
Set aside in a cool place if not using immediately.
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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Tarragon + buttertop 17% of all pairsSmell alikemoderateCooked together1,572 recipes
Shared aroma: anethole (sweet, anise).
Ranks compare each pair with 20,000 random ingredient pairs on CompKitchen. How we score pairs
What each ingredient does
- Fresh tarragon
- Supplies the herbal aroma and green flavour that defines the butter.
- Butter
- Carries the tarragon flavour and gives the finished butter its rich, spreadable texture.
The step that matters
Blanch and cool the tarragon. Brief blanching sets the bright green colour by inactivating enzymes that cause browning, and cooling stops the cooking. Pressing out excess water keeps the butter from becoming watery.
“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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