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Brussels Sprouts

A sautéed Brussels sprouts dish with butter, parsley, lemon, salt, and white pepper.

From an old cookbook · modernised transcription
From a historical cookbook (Internet Archive) · 8 ingredients
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Brussels Sprouts

Why it works: Parsley and lemon match in chemistry and in kitchens. They rank in the top 1% of all ingredient pairs, and cooks put them together in 14,037 recipes. Both carry beta-phellandrene, which smells minty, terpene. The science ↓

Brussels Sprouts

Ingredients

Directions

Prepare the sprouts

  1. Wash the Brussels sprouts well in salted water and pick them over.

  2. In a saucepan, combine the sprouts with water, a little salt, and bicarbonate of soda.

  3. Boil uncovered until the sprouts are tender.

  4. Drain the sprouts and dry them on a cloth.

Make the sauce and serve

  1. In a saucepan, melt the butter and mix in the chopped parsley, lemon juice, salt, and white pepper.

  2. Combine the sprouts with the sauce and serve.

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.

Photo for illustrative purposes only · Contact us to use it

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. Parsley + lemontop 1% of all pairs
    Smell alikestrong
    Cooked together14,037 recipes

    Shared aroma: beta-phellandrene (minty, terpene).

  2. Parsley + white peppertop 14% of all pairs
    Smell alikelow
    Cooked together1,451 recipes

    Shared aroma: myrcene (balsamic, herbaceous).

  3. Butter + parsleytop 15% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together28,563 recipes

    Shared aroma: trans-2-hexenal (green, leafy).

  4. Butter + lemontop 16% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together41,227 recipes

    Shared aroma: 3-hexenal (apple, fruity).

  5. Lemon + white peppertop 16% of all pairs
    Smell alikelow
    Cooked together1,658 recipes

    Shared aroma: eucalyptol (eucalyptus, herbal).

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

What each ingredient does

Brussels sprouts
Provide the main vegetable body and tender texture when boiled.
Bicarbonate of soda
Raises the cooking water's alkalinity, helping the sprouts stay bright green while they soften.
Butter
Adds fat and richness that coats the sprouts and carries flavour.
Lemon juice
Adds acidity that brightens the buttery sauce and balances its richness.

The step that matters

Drying the sprouts before saucing. Surface water dilutes the melted butter and stops it clinging to the sprouts, so draining and drying them well keeps the sauce coating evenly.

Swap the brussels sprouts

How well each one fits the dish's main ingredients (butter, parsley, lemon, white pepper):

  1. Shallotfits better
  2. Carrotfits better
  3. Potatofits better
  4. Brussels sproutsthe original

Fit is the average pairing score against butter, parsley, lemon, white pepper. 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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