Name: Fine Herbs Sauce
Ingredients: 1 large gravy spoonful prepared white mushrooms, chopped; 3 shallots, chopped; 1 handful parsley, chopped; 1 ounce fresh butter; a pinch of mignonette; pepper to taste; a little grated nutmeg; salt to taste; a little lemon juice

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 ↓

Fine Herbs Sauce

Ingredients

Directions

Make the sauce

In a stewing pan, combine the mushrooms, shallots, parsley, butter, mignonette, pepper, nutmeg, and salt.
Cook over medium heat for 5 minutes, stirring occasionally.
Remove from heat and finish with a little lemon juice.

Serve

Serve in a bain-marie or sauce boat.

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.

Parsley + lemontop 1% of all pairs

Smell alikestrong

Cooked together14,037 recipes

Shared aroma: beta-phellandrene (minty, terpene).
Shallot + parsleytop 1% of all pairs

Smell alikestrong

Cooked together3,737 recipes

Shared aroma: 2,4-decadienal (seaweed).
Parsley + peppertop 2% of all pairs

Smell alikestrong

Cooked together34,122 recipes

Shared aroma: 4'-methylacetophenone (bitter almond).
Pepper + lemontop 3% of all pairs

Smell alikestrong

Cooked together27,047 recipes

Shared aroma: trans-2-nonenal (cardboard, fatty).
Parsley + nutmegtop 3% of all pairs

Smell alikestrong

Cooked together5,062 recipes

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

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

What each ingredient does

Butter: Provides fat and rich mouthfeel, carrying the herb and mushroom flavours.
Shallots: Add a mild onion-like sweetness and aromatic base to the sauce.
Prepared white mushrooms: Contribute savoury, umami depth and body as they soften in the butter.
Parsley: Adds fresh, green herbal aroma that brightens the sauce.

Swap the nutmeg

How well each one fits the dish's main ingredients (mushroom, shallot, parsley, butter, pepper, lemon):

Thymefits better
Tarragonfits better
Marjoramfits better
Nutmegthe original

Fit is the average pairing score against mushroom, shallot, parsley, butter, pepper, lemon. 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.