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Fennel, Parsley, and Tarragon Sauces

A sauce made by blending blanched fennel, butter, and optionally tarragon, parsley, or capers.

From an old cookbook · modernised transcription
From a historical cookbook (Internet Archive) · 5 ingredients
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Why it works: Fennel and tarragon match in chemistry and in kitchens. They rank in the top 1% of all ingredient pairs, and cooks put them together in 134 recipes. Both carry 4-methoxybenzaldehyde, which smells sweet, anise. The science ↓

Fennel, Parsley, and Tarragon Sauces

Ingredients

Directions

  1. Blanch the fennel in boiling water for a few minutes.

  2. Finely mince the blanched fennel.

  3. Stir the minced fennel into the butter to make fennel sauce.

  4. For tarragon or parsley sauce, substitute minced tarragon or parsley for the fennel.

  5. To make caper sauce, add chopped or whole capers to the butter.

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. Fennel + tarragontop 1% of all pairs
    Smell alikestrong
    Cooked together134 recipes

    Shared aroma: 4-methoxybenzaldehyde (sweet, anise).

  2. Tarragon + caperstop 1% of all pairs
    Smell alikestrong
    Cooked together379 recipes

    Shared aroma: coumarin (sweet, hay).

  3. Tarragon + parsleytop 1% of all pairs
    Smell alikestrong
    Cooked together1,563 recipes

    Shared aroma: estragole (anise, licorice).

  4. Parsley + caperstop 1% of all pairs
    Smell alikestrong
    Cooked together1,550 recipes

    Shared aroma: coumarin (sweet, hay).

  5. Fennel + parsleytop 1% of all pairs
    Smell alikestrong
    Cooked together625 recipes

    Shared aroma: myristicin (spice, warm).

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

What each ingredient does

Fennel bulb
Provides the base flavour and body of the fennel sauce once blanched and minced.
Butter
Carries the herbs and capers and gives the sauce its rich, smooth fat base.
Tarragon
Adds a distinct anise-like aroma to the butter sauce.
Parsley
Adds fresh, green flavour and aroma to the butter sauce.
Capers
Add a sharp, briny acidity that cuts through the richness of the butter.

Swap the fennel

How well each one fits the dish's main ingredients (butter, tarragon, parsley, capers):

  1. Thymefits about as well
  2. Fennelthe original
  3. Marjoramfits about as well
  4. Dillfits about as well

Fit is the average pairing score against butter, tarragon, parsley, capers. 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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