Why it works: Parsley and butter are a kitchen classic. They rank in the top 15% of all ingredient pairs, and cooks put them together in 28,563 recipes. Both carry trans-2-hexenal, which smells green, leafy. The science ↓
Parsley and Butter
Ingredients
Directions
Boil the parsley for 4 to 5 minutes.
Thoroughly press the water from the parsley.
Mix the parsley with melted butter or béchamel sauce.
Serve as a sauce.
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.
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Parsley + buttertop 15% of all pairsSmell alikemoderateCooked together28,563 recipes
Shared aroma: trans-2-hexenal (green, leafy).
Ranks compare each pair with 20,000 random ingredient pairs on CompKitchen. How we score pairs
What each ingredient does
- Parsley
- Provides the main herbal flavor and green color of the sauce.
- Butter
- Adds richness and carries the parsley flavor through the sauce.
The step that matters
Thoroughly press the water from the parsley. Excess water dilutes the butter or béchamel and can make the sauce thin or split. Removing it well keeps the sauce thick and the flavor concentrated.
“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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