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Sauce

Herbs, Pike Sauce of

A herb sauce made with butter, flour, parsley, scallions, tarragon, borage, garden cress, chervil, and stock.

From an old cookbook · modernised transcription
From a historical cookbook (Internet Archive) · 9 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 ↓

Herbs, Pike Sauce of

Ingredients

Directions

Make the sauce

  1. In a saucepan, work up the butter with the flour until smooth, then melt the mixture over low heat.

  2. Add the chopped herbs and boil for about 15 minutes.

  3. Stir in the stock and heat through.

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. Garden cress + cherviltop 1% of all pairs
    Smell alikestrong
    Cooked together16 recipes

    Shared aroma: coumarin (sweet, hay).

  3. Borage + cherviltop 1% of all pairs
    Smell alikestrong
    Cooked together5 recipes

    Shared aroma: coumarin (sweet, hay).

  4. Borage + garden cresstop 1% of all pairs
    Smell alikestrong
    Cooked together3 recipes

    Shared aroma: coumarin (sweet, hay).

  5. Tarragon + garden cresstop 1% of all pairs
    Smell alikestrong
    Cooked together23 recipes

    Shared aroma: coumarin (sweet, hay).

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

What each ingredient does

Butter
Melted with the flour to form a smooth, rich base for the sauce.
Flour
Thickens the butter and stock into a smooth, cohesive sauce.
Chopped parsley
Adds fresh, green flavour and colour to the sauce.
Chopped scallions
Contribute mild onion aroma and savoury bite.
Chopped tarragon
Adds a distinctive, aromatic anise-like flavour.

The step that matters

Melting the butter and flour over low heat. Cooking the flour gently in the butter lets its starch swell and thicken the sauce smoothly. High heat can scorch the butter and leave lumps or a raw, floury taste.

Swap the borage

How well each one fits the dish's main ingredients (butter, flour, parsley, tarragon, garden cress, chervil):

  1. Capersfits better
  2. Marjoramfits about as well
  3. Boragethe original
  4. Thymefits less well

Fit is the average pairing score against butter, flour, parsley, tarragon, garden cress, 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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