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Sauce

Parsley and Butter Sauce

A sauce made with butter, flour, stock, milk, parsley, salt, and pepper.

From an old cookbook · modernised transcription
From a historical cookbook (Internet Archive) · 7 ingredients
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Why it works: Parsley and pepper match in chemistry and in kitchens. They rank in the top 2% of all ingredient pairs, and cooks put them together in 34,122 recipes. Both carry 4'-methylacetophenone, which smells bitter almond. The science ↓

Parsley and Butter Sauce

Ingredients

Directions

  1. Melt the butter in a saucepan.

  2. Stir in the flour smoothly.

  3. Add the stock and milk, and bring to a boil, stirring constantly.

  4. Boil well, then add the parsley and season with salt and pepper.

  5. Serve.

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. Parsley + peppertop 2% of all pairs
    Smell alikestrong
    Cooked together34,122 recipes

    Shared aroma: 4'-methylacetophenone (bitter almond).

  2. Butter + milktop 7% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together81,283 recipes

    Shared aroma: (z)-4-heptenal (biscuit, cream).

  3. Butter + flourtop 12% of all pairs
    Smell alikelow
    Cooked together124,287 recipes

    Shared aroma: isobutyraldehyde (malty, green).

  4. Flour + parsleytop 12% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together16,675 recipes

    Shared aroma: isobutyraldehyde (malty, green).

  5. Flour + milktop 14% of all pairs
    Smell alikelow
    Cooked together78,219 recipes

    Shared aroma: isobutyraldehyde (malty, green).

Butter and flour barely smell alike, yet cooks put them together in 124,287 recipes: they work on texture and structure more than aroma.

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 the flour is stirred into.
Flour
Thickens the liquid into a smooth sauce when cooked with the butter and stock.
Stock or liquid
Forms the main liquid body of the sauce.
Milk
Adds creaminess and a softer, richer texture to the sauce.

The step that matters

Stirring in the flour smoothly. Flour added to melted butter can clump if not stirred well. Lumps form when starch granules hydrate unevenly, so stirring the roux smoothly before adding liquid keeps the sauce silky.

Swap the parsley

How well each one fits the dish's main ingredients (butter, flour, milk, pepper):

  1. Cinnamonfits better
  2. Nutmegfits about as well
  3. Cardamomfits about as well
  4. Parsleythe original

Fit is the average pairing score against butter, flour, milk, pepper. 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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