Why it works: Butter and parsley 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 ↓
Green Butter
Ingredients
Directions
Prepare
Wash the anchovies well and pound them in a mortar.
Boil the parsley until tender, then squeeze out the water and chop it very fine.
Make the butter
Rub the chopped parsley through a sieve with the anchovies and 2 oz of butter.
Serve the mixture on very thin toast that has been baked in the oven until dry and crisp.
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 + parsleytop 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
- Anchovies
- Provide a salty, savoury depth that flavours the butter.
- Butter
- Carries the flavours and gives the mixture a smooth, spreadable body.
- Parsley
- Adds fresh, green herbal aroma and colour to the butter.
The step that matters
Rubbing the parsley through a sieve. Parsley must be cooked until tender and finely chopped so it passes through the sieve smoothly. Coarse pieces leave the butter gritty and uneven in texture.
“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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