Parsley Sauce

A comfort of the old British table: a smooth white béchamel made thick and green with a great deal of chopped parsley, poured over poached fish, boiled gammon, or broad beans, the gentlest and most homely of the English parsley dishes

Origin: England, United Kingdom

From the journey of Parsley.

Parsley sauce is one of the quiet comforts of traditional British cooking, a plain white sauce made luxuriant and green with chopped parsley. Built on a simple roux and milk in the manner of a béchamel, it is finished with so much chopped parsley that it turns a soft, speckled green, and it is the classic English partner to poached white fish, to boiled bacon and gammon, and to broad beans, over which it is poured at the table. It belongs to the gentle, nursery end of the British repertoire, the food of the Sunday boiled ham and the Friday fish, and it shows the milder, curly form of parsley in its most characteristic English role, cooked into a sauce rather than scattered raw. Simple, soothing, and unfashionable, it is one of those dishes that the people who grew up with it never stop loving.

Ingredients

  • 40 g butter
  • 40 g plain flour
  • 500 ml whole milk, warmed
  • 1 large handful parsley, finely chopped (about 30g)
  • 1 tsp Dijon or English mustard (optional)
  • 0.5 tsp salt
  • 0.25 tsp white pepper
  • 1 squeeze lemon juice (optional)

Method

  1. Melt the butter in a saucepan over medium heat. Stir in the flour and cook, stirring, for 1 to 2 minutes to make a pale roux; do not let it colour.
  2. Take the pan off the heat and add the warm milk a little at a time, whisking smooth after each addition, then return to the heat.
  3. Bring to a gentle simmer, whisking, and cook for 4 to 5 minutes until thickened and smooth, with no raw-flour taste.
  4. Stir in the chopped parsley, the mustard if using, salt, and pepper, and cook for a further minute, just to warm the parsley through.
  5. Taste, adjust the seasoning, brighten with a squeeze of lemon if you like, and serve hot over poached fish, boiled gammon, or broad beans.

Notes

For fish, making the sauce partly with the fish poaching milk deepens the flavour. The mustard and lemon are optional but lift the sauce. Use plenty of parsley, more than you think; it is the whole point. The same sauce, made with bacon stock, becomes the traditional accompaniment to boiled bacon and cabbage.

The Gastrographer

The Gastrographer

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Ingredient originTrade or transit route
Became a culinary stapleColonial / trade control
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