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 ↓
To Make Drawn Butter
Ingredients
Directions
Melt the butter in a small saucepan over low heat.
Add the chopped parsley and stir well.
Serve warm over cooked meats or vegetables.
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
- Unsalted butter
- Provides fat and richness, carrying flavour and giving the sauce its silky body.
- Parsley
- Adds fresh, herbal aroma and a bright green note to the butter.
The step that matters
Melting the butter over low heat. Gentle heat melts the butter without scorching the milk solids, which keep the sauce tasting nutty rather than burnt. Butter is an emulsion of fat and water, so high heat can make it separate and turn bitter.
“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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