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 Sauce
Ingredients
Directions
Prepare the parsley
Wash the parsley in cold water.
Boil the parsley in salted water for 6-7 minutes.
Drain the parsley and chop the leaves finely.
Make the sauce
Mix 2 tablespoons of chopped parsley with ½ pint of melted butter.
Serve
Serve with boiled chicken or fish.
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 fresh, herbal flavour and the green colour of the sauce.
- Butter
- Adds richness and a smooth, fatty mouthfeel that carries the parsley flavour.
The step that matters
Boiling the parsley. Six to seven minutes of boiling can dull the parsley's green colour and weaken its flavour, because prolonged heat breaks down chlorophyll and volatile aroma compounds. Keep the boil timed and the parsley bright.
“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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