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Chervil Butter

A butter spread flavored with chervil, paisley, anchovy, shallot, capers, cucumber, egg yolks, lemon juice, and spinach essence.

From an old cookbook · modernised transcription
From a historical cookbook (Internet Archive) · 10 ingredients
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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 ↓

Chervil Butter

Ingredients

Directions

Prepare

  1. Drain and dry the chervil and paisley.

  2. Place them in a mortar with the anchovy, shallot, capers, cucumber, butter, egg yolks, and lemon juice, then pound the mixture well together.

Finish and serve

  1. Add the essence of spinach and mix thoroughly.

  2. Mash through a sieve and use as a spread for cold fish or birds.

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.

  1. Shallot + caperstop 1% of all pairs
    Smell alikestrong
    Cooked together405 recipes

    Shared aroma: coumarin (sweet, hay).

  2. Chervil + caperstop 1% of all pairs
    Smell alikestrong
    Cooked together135 recipes

    Shared aroma: coumarin (sweet, hay).

  3. Chervil + shallottop 1% of all pairs
    Smell alikestrong
    Cooked together266 recipes

    Shared aroma: coumarin (sweet, hay).

  4. Chervil + lemontop 3% of all pairs
    Smell alikestrong
    Cooked together358 recipes

    Shared aroma: coumarin (sweet, hay).

  5. Capers + cucumbertop 3% of all pairs
    Smell alikestrong
    Cooked together303 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 richness and a smooth, spreadable body to the mixture.
Egg yolks
Add richness and help bind the pounded herbs into a smooth paste.
Anchovy
Adds a savoury, salty depth that rounds out the herb flavours.
Lemon juice
Adds acidity that brightens the herbs and balances the butter.

Swap the cucumber

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

  1. Chivefits better
  2. Kalefits better
  3. Leekfits better
  4. Cucumberthe original

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

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