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Montpelier Butter

A green butter made with chervil, tarragon, burnet, chives, anchovies, egg yolks, sweet oil, capers, and fresh butter.

From an old cookbook · modernised transcription
From a historical cookbook (Internet Archive) · 10 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 ↓

Montpelier Butter

Ingredients

Directions

Prepare the herbs

  1. Pick, wash, and scald the chervil, tarragon, burnet, and chives in salt water.

  2. Drain and pound the herbs finely in a mortar.

Make the butter

  1. Add the boned anchovies, egg yolks, sweet oil, and chopped capers; mix well.

  2. Combine this mixture with the fresh butter and set in ice to cool.

  3. If the butter is not sufficiently green, add a little spinach juice.

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 + caperstop 1% of all pairs
    Smell alikestrong
    Cooked together135 recipes

    Shared aroma: coumarin (sweet, hay).

  4. Chive + caperstop 1% of all pairs
    Smell alikestrong
    Cooked together245 recipes

    Shared aroma: coumarin (sweet, hay).

  5. Tarragon + caperstop 1% of all pairs
    Smell alikestrong
    Cooked together379 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

Fresh butter
Forms the rich base that carries the herbs and gives the spread its body.
Egg yolks
Emulsify with the oil and butter, giving the spread a smooth, creamy texture.
Anchovies
Add a salty, savoury depth that rounds out the herb flavour.
Chervil
Provides the main fresh herbal flavour and the green colour of the butter.

The step that matters

Combine the mixture with the butter and chill. Butter must be combined while the herb and yolk mixture is evenly blended, then chilled so the butter firms and holds its shape. Cold also keeps the fat from softening and separating.

Swap the spinach

The recipe marks spinach as optional. How well each one fits the dish's main ingredients (chervil, tarragon, chive, egg, capers, butter):

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

Fit is the average pairing score against chervil, tarragon, chive, egg, capers, 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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