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Sauce Aux Fines Herbes

A French sauce made with butter, flour, fresh herbs, and bouillon, simmered until thickened.

From an old cookbook · modernised transcription
From a historical cookbook (Internet Archive) · 10 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 ↓

Sauce Aux Fines Herbes

Ingredients

Directions

  1. Melt the butter in a saucepan over medium heat.

  2. Stir in the flour and cook for 1-2 minutes until lightly golden.

  3. Add the chopped herbs and bouillon to the saucepan.

  4. Bring to a boil, stirring constantly, and cook for 2-3 minutes.

  5. Serve hot.

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. Chive + cherviltop 1% of all pairs
    Smell alikestrong
    Cooked together370 recipes

    Shared aroma: coumarin (sweet, hay).

  3. Shallot + cherviltop 1% of all pairs
    Smell alikestrong
    Cooked together266 recipes

    Shared aroma: coumarin (sweet, hay).

  4. Chive + shallottop 1% of all pairs
    Smell alikestrong
    Cooked together450 recipes

    Shared aroma: 1-octen-3-ol (mushroom, earthy).

  5. Shallot + tarragontop 1% of all pairs
    Smell alikestrong
    Cooked together602 recipes

    Shared aroma: eucalyptol (eucalyptus, herbal).

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

What each ingredient does

Butter
Melts to form the fat base that carries the flavour of the herbs.
All-purpose flour
Cooked in the butter to form a roux that thickens the sauce.
Bouillon
Liquid that hydrates the roux and becomes the body of the sauce.
Parsley
Adds fresh green aroma and flavour to the sauce.
Chives
Contributes a mild onion-like freshness to the herb blend.

The step that matters

Bring to a boil while stirring constantly. A roux thickens only when the starch granules swell in hot liquid. Stirring keeps the flour evenly dispersed so lumps do not form, and the sauce must reach a boil to reach full thickness.

Swap the parsley

How well each one fits the dish's main ingredients (butter, flour, chive, shallot, tarragon, chervil):

  1. Capersfits better
  2. Parsleythe original
  3. Thymefits less well
  4. Marjoramfits less well

Fit is the average pairing score against butter, flour, chive, shallot, tarragon, chervil. 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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