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Green Herb Butter [Beurre Ravigote]

A butter flavored with blanched green herbs and shallots.

From an old cookbook · modernised transcription
From a historical cookbook (Internet Archive) · 7 ingredients
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Why it works: Chervil and tarragon 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 ↓

Green Herb Butter [Beurre Ravigote]

Ingredients

Directions

Prepare the herbs

  1. Wash and pick the chervil, spinach, chives, tarragon, and parsley.

  2. Blanch the herbs in a saucepan with water, then drain well.

  3. Pound the herbs in a mortar until smooth.

Make the butter sauce

  1. Peel and finely chop the shallots, then cook them in a little butter until golden.

  2. Combine the cooked shallots with the herbs, then work in the butter.

  3. Rub the mixture through a fine sieve and 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. Chervil + tarragontop 1% of all pairs
    Smell alikestrong
    Cooked together824 recipes

    Shared aroma: estragole (anise, licorice).

  2. Chervil + chivetop 1% of all pairs
    Smell alikestrong
    Cooked together370 recipes

    Shared aroma: coumarin (sweet, hay).

  3. Chervil + shallottop 1% of all pairs
    Smell alikestrong
    Cooked together266 recipes

    Shared aroma: coumarin (sweet, hay).

  4. Chive + shallottop 1% of all pairs
    Smell alikestrong
    Cooked together450 recipes

    Shared aroma: 1-octen-3-ol (mushroom, earthy).

  5. Tarragon + shallottop 1% of all pairs
    Smell alikestrong
    Cooked together602 recipes

    Shared aroma: eucalyptol (eucalyptus, herbal).

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

What each ingredient does

Chervil
Provides the main fresh herbal flavour and bulk of the green purée.
Spinach
Adds body and a smooth, green base to the purée.
Butter
Adds richness and fat, giving the sauce a silky, emulsified texture.
Shallots
Contribute a mild, sweet onion aroma when softened in butter.
Tarragon
Contributes its distinctive aniseed-like aroma to the sauce.

The step that matters

Blanch the herbs, then drain well. Brief blanching in boiling water sets the bright green colour by inactivating enzymes that otherwise turn herbs dull olive. Thorough draining removes excess water so the butter emulsifies into a smooth sauce rather than splitting or thinning.

Swap the spinach

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

  1. Leekfits better
  2. Lettucefits better
  3. Beetrootfits better
  4. Spinachthe original

Fit is the average pairing score against chervil, chive, tarragon, parsley, shallot, butter. 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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