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Sauce

Hollandaise Sauce

A creamy sauce made from butter, egg yolks, lemon juice, cayenne pepper, and salt, thickened with boiling water.

From an old cookbook · modernised transcription
From a historical cookbook (Internet Archive) · 6 ingredients
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Why it works: Lemon and pepper match in chemistry and in kitchens. They rank in the top 3% of all ingredient pairs, and 27,047 recipes mention both. Both carry trans-2-nonenal, which smells cardboard, fatty. The science ↓

Hollandaise Sauce

Ingredients

Directions

Prepare the base

  1. Beat the butter until creamy.

  2. Add the egg yolks one at a time, mixing well.

  3. Stir in the lemon juice, cayenne pepper, and salt, beating thoroughly.

Make the sauce

  1. Place the bowl over a saucepan of boiling water.

  2. Beat with an egg beater until it begins to thicken, about 1 minute.

  3. Gradually add the boiling water while continuing to beat.

  4. Stir until it thickens to a soft custard consistency.

  5. Remove from heat and stir for a few more minutes, being careful not to overcook.

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. Lemon + peppertop 3% of all pairs
    Aroma overlapstrong
    Mentioned together27,047 recipes

    Shared aroma: trans-2-nonenal (cardboard, fatty).

  2. Butter + lemontop 16% of all pairs
    Aroma overlapmoderate
    Mentioned together41,227 recipes

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

  3. Butter + eggtop 17% of all pairs
    Aroma overlapmoderate
    Mentioned together118,967 recipes

    Shared aroma: decanal (soap, orange peel).

  4. Lemon + eggtop 19% of all pairs
    Aroma overlaplow
    Mentioned together44,316 recipes

    Shared aroma: (e,e)-2,4-decadienal (fatty, deep fried).

  5. Butter + peppertop 21% of all pairs
    Aroma overlapmoderate
    Mentioned together85,593 recipes

    Shared aroma: trans-2-nonenal (cardboard, fatty).

Lemon and egg share little aroma chemistry, yet 44,316 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

Butter
Adds fat and richness, giving the sauce a smooth, creamy mouthfeel.
Egg yolks
Emulsify and thicken as they heat, setting the sauce into a soft custard.
Lemon juice
Adds acidity that brightens the flavour and helps balance the richness of the butter.

The step that matters

Thickening over the simmering water. Egg yolks set into a custard at moderate heat, and if they get too hot they scramble and curdle. Gentle, constant beating over the water keeps the sauce smooth.

“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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