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Hollandaise Sauce

A sauce of egg yolks, butter, and vinegar, thickened with flour.

From an old cookbook · modernised transcription
From a historical cookbook (Internet Archive) · 9 ingredients
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Why it works: Onion and tarragon are a kitchen classic. They rank in the top 12% of all ingredient pairs, and 1,568 recipes mention both. Both carry coumarin, which smells sweet, hay. The science ↓

Hollandaise Sauce

Ingredients

Directions

Prepare the flavouring

  1. Combine bay leaves, onion, and vinegar in a small saucepan.

  2. Bring to a boil, then cool.

Make the sauce

  1. Rub butter and flour together in a double boiler.

  2. Gradually add boiling water, stirring until thickened.

  3. Strain the vinegar mixture into the sauce.

  4. Remove the sauce from heat.

  5. Stir in egg yolks one at a time, mixing gently.

  6. Reheat briefly.

  7. Add salt.

  8. Add pepper.

  9. Strain and serve immediately.

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 aroma chemistry they share, and how many recipes mention both.

  1. Onion + tarragontop 12% of all pairs
    Aroma overlapmoderate
    Mentioned together1,568 recipes

    Shared aroma: coumarin (sweet, hay).

  2. Butter + flourtop 12% of all pairs
    Aroma overlaplow
    Mentioned together124,287 recipes

    Shared aroma: isobutyraldehyde (malty, green).

  3. Tarragon + flourtop 12% of all pairs
    Aroma overlapmoderate
    Mentioned together788 recipes

    Shared aroma: isobutyraldehyde (malty, green).

  4. Onion + buttertop 15% of all pairs
    Aroma overlapmoderate
    Mentioned together42,912 recipes

    Shared aroma: decanal (soap, orange peel).

  5. Tarragon + white peppertop 15% of all pairs
    Aroma overlapmoderate
    Mentioned together139 recipes

    Shared aroma: eucalyptol (eucalyptus, herbal).

Butter and flour share little aroma chemistry, yet 124,287 recipes mention both: they likely work on texture and structure more than aroma.

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

What each ingredient does

Egg yolks
Emulsify with the butter and thicken the sauce as they gently cook, giving it richness.
Butter
Adds fat and richness, and helps form a smooth emulsion with the yolks.
Flour
Thickens the sauce with the boiling water, giving it body before the yolks are added.

The step that matters

Stir in egg yolks one at a time, mixing gently. Egg yolks can scramble if they get too hot or are added too quickly. Adding them one at a time and mixing gently lets them blend and thicken the sauce smoothly.

Flavor stand-ins for the white pepper

How well each one fits the dish's main ingredients (onion, tarragon, egg, butter, flour):

  1. Capersbetter flavor fit
  2. Parsleybetter flavor fit
  3. Thymebetter flavor fit
  4. White pepperthe original

Fit is the average pairing score against onion, tarragon, egg, butter, flour. Candidates are from the same food group and used in at least 100 recipes. This compares flavor only: it does not check the job the ingredient does in the dish (bulk, moisture, acidity, structure).

“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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