Why it works: Butter and fennel work together. They rank in the top 27% of all ingredient pairs, and cooks put them together in 647 recipes. Both carry anethole, which smells sweet, anise. The science ↓
Fennel Sauce
Ingredients
Directions
Boil the fennel for 2 minutes, then chop it.
In a saucepan, combine the melted butter, chopped fennel, and additional teaspoon of butter.
Simmer gently for 1 minute, then serve.
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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Butter + fenneltop 27% of all pairsSmell alikemoderateCooked together647 recipes
Shared aroma: anethole (sweet, anise).
Ranks compare each pair with 20,000 random ingredient pairs on CompKitchen. How we score pairs
What each ingredient does
- Melted butter
- Forms the fat base of the sauce, giving it smooth richness and a silky mouthfeel.
- Fennel
- Adds a light anise-like aroma that flavours the butter.
“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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