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Sauce

Sauce Aux Fines Herbes

A buttery sauce flavored with finely chopped herbs and bouillon.

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

Make the sauce

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

  2. Stir in the flour until well combined.

  3. Add the chopped herbs and bouillon.

  4. Bring to a boil, stirring constantly.

Serve

  1. 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
Provides fat and richness, and forms the base for the flour to cook into a roux.
Flour
Thickens the sauce as it cooks with the melted butter and bouillon.
Parsley
Adds fresh green herbal flavour and aroma to the sauce.
Bouillon
Supplies the liquid that the flour thickens into a sauce, adding savoury flavour.
Chives
Adds a mild onion-like aroma and fresh flavour to the sauce.
Tarragon
Contributes a distinctive anise-like aroma and fresh flavour to the herb blend.

The step that matters

Bring to a boil, stirring constantly. Flour must be heated long enough to swell and thicken the liquid fully. Constant stirring prevents lumps and scorching on the bottom of the pan.

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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