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Preserve

To Preserve Chervil, Sorrel, Beet, &C.

This recipe preserves herbs by cooking them in butter.

From an old cookbook · modernised transcription
From a historical cookbook (Internet Archive) · 8 ingredients
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Why it works: Sorrel and chervil match in chemistry and in kitchens. They rank in the top 1% of all ingredient pairs, and cooks put them together in 247 recipes. Both carry coumarin, which smells sweet, hay. The science ↓

To Preserve Chervil, Sorrel, Beet, &C.

Ingredients

Directions

Prepare the herbs

  1. Pick the herbs carefully and wash them several times.

  2. Set them to drain.

  3. Chop the herbs and press them with your hands to remove excess water.

Cook in butter

  1. Melt a good piece of butter in a pan.

  2. Add the herbs to the melted butter.

  3. Cook until the herbs are tender and well combined with the butter.

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. Sorrel + cherviltop 1% of all pairs
    Smell alikestrong
    Cooked together247 recipes

    Shared aroma: coumarin (sweet, hay).

  2. Sorrel + purslanetop 1% of all pairs
    Smell alikestrong
    Cooked together21 recipes

    Shared aroma: coumarin (sweet, hay).

  3. Chervil + purslanetop 1% of all pairs
    Smell alikestrong
    Cooked together21 recipes

    Shared aroma: coumarin (sweet, hay).

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

    Shared aroma: coumarin (sweet, hay).

  5. Sorrel + chivetop 1% of all pairs
    Smell alikestrong
    Cooked together64 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
Carries the herbs as a fat, coating them and adding richness and flavor.
Sorrel
Contributes a bright, tangy sourness that stands out in the finished herbs.
Parsley
Adds fresh, green aroma and body to the herb mixture.

The step that matters

Pressing out the excess water. Leftover water from washing dilutes the butter and causes the herbs to steam and spatter instead of cooking gently in the fat. Pressing the chopped herbs dry lets them become tender and combine evenly with the butter.

Swap the parsley

How well each one fits the dish's main ingredients (sorrel, chervil, purslane, chive, cucumber, butter):

  1. Capersfits better
  2. Tarragonfits better
  3. Parsleythe original
  4. Garlicfits less well

Fit is the average pairing score against sorrel, chervil, purslane, chive, cucumber, 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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