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Savory Herb Powder

A dried herb powder made from parsley, savory, thyme, sweet marjoram, shallot, chervil, and sage.

From an old cookbook · modernised transcription
From a historical cookbook (Internet Archive) · 7 ingredients
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Why it works: Thyme and marjoram match in chemistry and in kitchens. They rank in the top 1% of all ingredient pairs, and cooks put them together in 2,225 recipes. Both carry terpineol, which smells pine, woody. The science ↓

Savory Herb Powder

Ingredients

Directions

The book gives no oven temperature. The 300°F (150°C) in the steps was added when the recipe was transcribed, as a starting point.

Prepare

  1. Preheat the oven to 300°F (150°C).

  2. Dry the herbs in the oven.

Finish and store

  1. Pound the dried herbs finely.

  2. Store the powder in well-stopped bottles.

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. Thyme + marjoramtop 1% of all pairs
    Smell alikestrong
    Cooked together2,225 recipes

    Shared aroma: terpineol (pine, woody).

  2. Shallot + cherviltop 1% of all pairs
    Smell alikestrong
    Cooked together266 recipes

    Shared aroma: coumarin (sweet, hay).

  3. Marjoram + sagetop 1% of all pairs
    Smell alikestrong
    Cooked together507 recipes

    Shared aroma: 2-hexenal (green, leafy).

  4. Thyme + sagetop 1% of all pairs
    Smell alikestrong
    Cooked together1,485 recipes

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

  5. Parsley + thymetop 1% of all pairs
    Smell alikestrong
    Cooked together9,057 recipes

    Shared aroma: cuminaldehyde (Spicy, cumin).

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

What each ingredient does

Parsley
Adds fresh, green herbal aroma to the blended powder.
Savory
Contributes a peppery, aromatic flavor that gives the powder its character.
Thyme
Adds a warm, earthy aroma that carries through the mix.
Sweet marjoram
Adds a sweet, floral aroma that rounds out the blend.
Shallot
Adds a mild onion-like sweetness and savory depth.
Chervil
Adds a delicate, anise-like aroma to the blend.

The step that matters

Dry the herbs in the oven. Herbs that retain moisture can clump, mold, or lose aroma during storage. Thorough drying at low heat lets them become brittle enough to pound into a fine powder that keeps its flavor.

Swap the sage

How well each one fits the dish's main ingredients (parsley, thyme, marjoram, shallot, chervil):

  1. Tarragonfits better
  2. Winter savoryfits better
  3. Capersfits better
  4. Sagethe original

Fit is the average pairing score against parsley, thyme, marjoram, shallot, 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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