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Parsley and Butter

Boiled parsley served with melted butter or béchamel sauce.

From an old cookbook · modernised transcription
From a historical cookbook (Internet Archive) · 4 ingredients
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Why it works: Parsley and chervil match in chemistry and in kitchens. They rank in the top 1% of all ingredient pairs, and cooks put them together in 774 recipes. Both carry estragole, which smells anise, licorice. The science ↓

Parsley and Butter

Ingredients

Directions

Prepare the parsley

  1. Boil the parsley in water for four to five minutes.

  2. Thoroughly press the water from the parsley.

Make the sauce

  1. For an improved sauce, use béchamel or melted butter instead of melted butter.

  2. If desired, boil and chop chervil, then mix it with gravy or 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. Parsley + cherviltop 1% of all pairs
    Smell alikestrong
    Cooked together774 recipes

    Shared aroma: estragole (anise, licorice).

  2. Parsley + buttertop 15% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together28,563 recipes

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

  3. Parsley + vealtop 17% of all pairs
    Smell alikelow
    Cooked together4,766 recipes

    Shared aroma: 2,4-decadienal (seaweed).

  4. Butter + vealtop 23% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together9,381 recipes

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

  5. Butter + cherviltop 24% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together805 recipes

    Shared aroma: isobutyraldehyde (malty, green).

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

What each ingredient does

Parsley
Provides the main herb flavour and the green colour of the dish.
Butter
Adds fat for richness and a smooth, glossy texture to the sauce.
Béchamel sauce
Thickens the liquid and gives a creamier, more coating texture than plain butter.
Chervil
Adds a delicate, aromatic herb flavour to the sauce.

The step that matters

Thoroughly press the water from the parsley. Boiled parsley holds a lot of water. If it is not pressed dry, the extra liquid dilutes the butter or sauce, making it thin and watery instead of coating the herbs.

Swap the chervil

The recipe marks chervil as optional. How well each one fits the dish's main ingredients (parsley, butter, veal):

  1. Thymefits better
  2. Sagefits better
  3. Capersfits better
  4. Chervilthe original

Fit is the average pairing score against parsley, butter, veal. 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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