Name: Montpellier Butter
Ingredients: 4 oz fresh butter; 1 anchovy; 1 hard boiled egg yolk; large spray of parsley; large spray of fennel; ½ shallot; 1 teaspoon capers; 1 gherkin; 2 spinach leaves or a little green coloring; salt and pepper to taste; 2 teaspoons salad oil

Why it works: Shallot and capers match in chemistry and in kitchens. They rank in the top 1% of all ingredient pairs, and cooks put them together in 405 recipes. Both carry coumarin, which smells sweet, hay. The science ↓

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.

Shallot + caperstop 1% of all pairs

Smell alikestrong

Cooked together405 recipes

Shared aroma: coumarin (sweet, hay).
Parsley + caperstop 1% of all pairs

Smell alikestrong

Cooked together1,550 recipes

Shared aroma: coumarin (sweet, hay).
Parsley + shallottop 1% of all pairs

Smell alikestrong

Cooked together3,737 recipes

Shared aroma: 2,4-decadienal (seaweed).
Parsley + fenneltop 1% of all pairs

Smell alikestrong

Cooked together625 recipes

Shared aroma: myristicin (spice, warm).
Capers + spinachtop 1% of all pairs

Smell alikestrong

Cooked together99 recipes

Shared aroma: coumarin (sweet, hay).

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

What each ingredient does

Butter: Provides the rich fat base that carries the flavours and firms up when chilled.
Egg yolk: Helps bind the butter and oil into a smooth, stable emulsion.
Anchovy: Adds salty, savoury depth that rounds out the butter.
Gherkin: Adds sharp acidity that cuts through the richness of the butter.
Capers: Add briny, tangy bite that brightens the butter.
Shallot: Adds a mild, sharp allium aroma to the butter.

The step that matters

Strain the blanched herbs very dry. Water left in the blanched parsley, fennel and spinach would dilute the butter and can stop it setting firm when chilled. Squeezing out the moisture keeps the texture smooth and the colour bright.

Swap the fennel

How well each one fits the dish's main ingredients (butter, anchovy, egg, parsley, shallot, capers, spinach):

Tarragonfits better
Thymefits better
Nutmegfits better
Fennelthe original

Fit is the average pairing score against butter, anchovy, egg, parsley, shallot, capers, spinach. 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.

Montpellier Butter