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Sauce

Parsley Sauce

A sauce made with butter, milk, thick cream, flour, parsley, salt, and pepper.

From an old cookbook · modernised transcription
From a historical cookbook (Internet Archive) · 7 ingredients
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Why it works: Parsley and pepper match in chemistry and in kitchens. They rank in the top 2% of all ingredient pairs, and cooks put them together in 34,122 recipes. Both carry 4'-methylacetophenone, which smells bitter almond. The science ↓

Parsley Sauce

Ingredients

Directions

  1. Melt the butter in a saucepan.

  2. Stir in the flour.

  3. Gradually add the milk, stirring until boiling.

  4. Add salt and pepper to taste.

  5. Stir in the cream and parsley, and boil for three minutes.

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. Parsley + peppertop 2% of all pairs
    Smell alikestrong
    Cooked together34,122 recipes

    Shared aroma: 4'-methylacetophenone (bitter almond).

  2. Butter + milktop 7% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together81,283 recipes

    Shared aroma: (z)-4-heptenal (biscuit, cream).

  3. Butter + creamtop 8% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together41,516 recipes

    Shared aroma: delta-dodecalactone (sweet, creamy).

  4. Butter + flourtop 12% of all pairs
    Smell alikelow
    Cooked together124,287 recipes

    Shared aroma: isobutyraldehyde (malty, green).

  5. Parsley + flourtop 12% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together16,675 recipes

    Shared aroma: isobutyraldehyde (malty, green).

Butter and flour barely smell alike, yet cooks put them together in 124,287 recipes: they work on texture and structure more than aroma.

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

What each ingredient does

Butter
Melts to carry the flour and adds richness and a rounded flavour to the sauce.
Flour
Thickens the sauce as its starch swells in the hot milk, giving body.
Milk
Forms the liquid base of the sauce, which thickens as it heats.
Thick cream
Adds richness and a smoother, silkier mouthfeel to the finished sauce.
Parsley
Adds fresh, green aroma and a light herbal flavour.

The step that matters

Adding the milk gradually while stirring. Flour must be evenly dispersed in the fat before the liquid goes in. Adding milk slowly and stirring constantly lets the starch hydrate and swell smoothly, which prevents lumps and produces an even, thick sauce as it comes to the boil.

Swap the parsley

How well each one fits the dish's main ingredients (butter, milk, cream, flour, pepper):

  1. Nutmegfits better
  2. Cinnamonfits better
  3. Cardamomfits about as well
  4. Parsleythe original

Fit is the average pairing score against butter, milk, cream, flour, pepper. 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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