Why it works: Butter and parsley are a kitchen classic. They rank in the top 15% of all ingredient pairs, and cooks put them together in 28,563 recipes. Both carry trans-2-hexenal, which smells green, leafy. The science ↓
Black Butter
Ingredients
Directions
Melt the butter over medium heat in a frying pan.
Cook until the butter turns brown and begins to smoke.
Add the parsley leaves and spread immediately over the dish you are preparing.
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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Butter + parsleytop 15% of all pairsSmell alikemoderateCooked together28,563 recipes
Shared aroma: trans-2-hexenal (green, leafy).
Ranks compare each pair with 20,000 random ingredient pairs on CompKitchen. How we score pairs
What each ingredient does
- Butter
- Browns and foams as its milk solids toast, giving the sauce its nutty, aromatic flavour.
- Parsley leaves
- Add a fresh, green herbal aroma that contrasts with the toasted butter.
The step that matters
Cook until the butter turns brown and begins to smoke. Butter's milk solids darken quickly once the water has boiled off, so it can go from nutty to burnt in seconds. Watch closely and stop the cooking as soon as it reaches a rich brown, since burnt butter turns bitter.
“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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