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Sauce

Maitre D Hotel Sauce Maigre,t or Without Gravy

A light sauce made with melted butter, salt, pepper, parsley, and lemon juice.

From an old cookbook · modernised transcription
From a historical cookbook (Internet Archive) · 5 ingredients
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Why it works: Parsley and lemon match in chemistry and in kitchens. They rank in the top 1% of all ingredient pairs, and cooks put them together in 14,037 recipes. Both carry beta-phellandrene, which smells minty, terpene. The science ↓

Maitre D Hotel Sauce Maigre,t or Without Gravy

Ingredients

Directions

  1. In a bowl, combine melted butter with salt, pepper, minced parsley, and lemon juice.

  2. Mix well until all ingredients are fully incorporated.

  3. Use this sauce to cover large fish or as a topping for broiled meats.

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 + lemontop 1% of all pairs
    Smell alikestrong
    Cooked together14,037 recipes

    Shared aroma: beta-phellandrene (minty, terpene).

  2. Pepper + parsleytop 2% of all pairs
    Smell alikestrong
    Cooked together34,122 recipes

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

  3. Pepper + lemontop 3% of all pairs
    Smell alikestrong
    Cooked together27,047 recipes

    Shared aroma: trans-2-nonenal (cardboard, fatty).

  4. Butter + parsleytop 15% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together28,563 recipes

    Shared aroma: trans-2-hexenal (green, leafy).

  5. Butter + lemontop 16% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together41,227 recipes

    Shared aroma: 3-hexenal (apple, fruity).

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

What each ingredient does

Butter
Provides fat and richness, carrying the flavor of the other ingredients and giving the sauce its body.
Lemon juice
Adds acidity that brightens the sauce and cuts the richness of the melted butter.
Parsley
Contributes fresh, herbal aroma and a green flavor note.

The step that matters

Mix well until fully incorporated. Melted butter and lemon juice are not naturally blended and tend to separate. Thorough mixing disperses the lemon juice and parsley evenly through the fat so the sauce tastes consistent and does not look broken.

“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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