Why it works: Parsley and butter are a kitchen classic. They rank in the top 15% of all ingredient pairs, and cooks put them together in 28,563 recipes. Both carry trans-2-hexenal, which smells green, leafy. The science ↓
Parsley Sauce
Ingredients
Directions
Prepare the parsley
Wash the parsley in cold water.
Boil the parsley in salted water for 6-7 minutes.
Drain the parsley and chop the leaves finely, discarding the stems.
Make and serve the sauce
Stir the chopped parsley into the melted butter, using 2 tablespoons of parsley for every ½ pint of butter.
Serve the sauce with boiled fowl or fish.
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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Parsley + buttertop 15% of all pairsSmell alikemoderateCooked together28,563 recipes
Shared aroma: trans-2-hexenal (green, leafy).
Ranks compare each pair with 20,000 random ingredient pairs on CompKitchen. How we score pairs
What each ingredient does
- Parsley
- Provides the herbal flavour and green colour that make up the sauce.
- Butter
- Carries the parsley flavour and gives the sauce its richness and smooth texture.
The step that matters
Boiling the parsley for 6-7 minutes. Prolonged heat breaks down the chlorophyll that makes parsley green, so the sauce can turn dull and olive-coloured. Boil only until the parsley is tender, then drain it promptly.
“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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