Why it works: Parsley and butter 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 ↓
Celery Sauce
Ingredients
Directions
Wash the parsley in cold water.
Boil the parsley in salt water for 6-7 minutes, then drain.
Remove the leaves from the stalks and chop them finely.
Stir the chopped parsley into the melted butter, using 2 tablespoons of leaves for every ½ cup of butter.
Serve with boiled fowls, rock fish, sea bass, or knuckle of veal.
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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Parsley + buttertop 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
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