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Sauce

Herb Sauce

A sauce made from parsley, mint, fennel, butter, salt, and lemon juice.

From an old cookbook · modernised transcription
From a historical cookbook (Internet Archive) · 6 ingredients
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Why it works: Parsley and lemon match in chemistry and in kitchens. They rank in the top 1% of all ingredient pairs, and cooks put them together in 14,037 recipes. Both carry beta-phellandrene, which smells minty, terpene. The science ↓

Herb Sauce

Ingredients

Directions

Prepare the herbs

  1. Parboil the parsley, mint, and fennel until tender.

  2. Mince the herbs finely.

Make and serve the sauce

  1. Mix the minced herbs with melted butter.

  2. Add salt and lemon juice to the mixture.

  3. Serve the sauce 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. Parsley + lemontop 1% of all pairs
    Smell alikestrong
    Cooked together14,037 recipes

    Shared aroma: beta-phellandrene (minty, terpene).

  2. Parsley + fenneltop 1% of all pairs
    Smell alikestrong
    Cooked together625 recipes

    Shared aroma: myristicin (spice, warm).

  3. Fennel + lemontop 1% of all pairs
    Smell alikestrong
    Cooked together723 recipes

    Shared aroma: beta-phellandrene (minty, terpene).

  4. Mint + lemontop 4% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together1,998 recipes

    Shared aroma: beta-phellandrene (minty, terpene).

  5. Parsley + minttop 7% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together1,198 recipes

    Shared aroma: 2,4-decadienal (seaweed).

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

What each ingredient does

Parsley
Provides the main green herbal flavour and aroma of the sauce.
Mint
Adds a cool, fresh aroma that lifts the herb flavour.
Fennel
Contributes a light anise-like aroma that adds depth to the herb blend.
Melted butter
Carries the herb flavour and gives the sauce a smooth, rich texture.
Lemon juice
Adds acidity that brightens the herb flavours and balances the butter.

The step that matters

Parboil the herbs until tender. Parboiling softens the herbs so they blend smoothly, but overcooking dulls their green colour and fresh flavour. Stop once they are just tender and drain them well so excess water does not thin the butter sauce.

Swap the mint

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

  1. Thymefits better
  2. Tarragonfits better
  3. Dillfits better
  4. Mintthe original

Fit is the average pairing score against parsley, fennel, butter, lemon. 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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