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Sauce

Horseradish Hollandaise Sauce

A sauce made with butter, vinegar, egg yolks, salt, horseradish, and heavy cream.

From an old cookbook · modernised transcription
From a historical cookbook (Internet Archive) · 6 ingredients
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Why it works: Butter and cream are a kitchen classic. They rank in the top 8% of all ingredient pairs, and cooks put them together in 41,516 recipes. Both carry delta-dodecalactone, which smells sweet, creamy. The science ↓

Horseradish Hollandaise Sauce

Ingredients

Directions

  1. Wash the butter and divide it into three pieces.

  2. In a saucepan, combine one piece of butter, vinegar, egg yolks, and salt.

  3. Place the saucepan in a larger pot of boiling water and stir constantly until the butter melts.

  4. As the mixture thickens, add the second piece of butter, then the third piece.

  5. Remove from heat.

  6. Stir in the grated horseradish and the heavy cream, beating until stiff.

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 their aromas overlap, and how often cooks already put them together.

  1. Butter + creamtop 8% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together41,516 recipes

    Shared aroma: delta-dodecalactone (sweet, creamy).

  2. Vinegar + horseradishtop 12% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together2,609 recipes

    Shared aroma: isobutyraldehyde (malty, green).

  3. Butter + eggtop 17% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together118,967 recipes

    Shared aroma: decanal (soap, orange peel).

  4. Horseradish + creamtop 18% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together483 recipes

    Shared aroma: octanal (fat, soap).

  5. Butter + vinegartop 23% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together13,513 recipes

    Shared aroma: isoamyl acetate (banana, pear).

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

What each ingredient does

Egg yolks
Emulsify the butter and thicken the sauce as they heat gently.
Butter
Provides fat that makes the sauce rich and silky when emulsified.
Vinegar
Adds acidity that balances the richness of the butter and yolks.
Grated horseradish root
Adds sharp, pungent flavor that defines the sauce.
Heavy cream
Adds moisture and softness to the finished sauce.

The step that matters

Adding the butter while the yolks thicken. Butter must be added gradually while the yolks are warm, so it emulsifies into the sauce. Adding it too fast or with too much heat can split the sauce into greasy liquid and scrambled egg.

Swap the horseradish

How well each one fits the dish's main ingredients (butter, vinegar, egg, cream):

  1. Chivefits about as well
  2. Potatofits about as well
  3. Asparagusfits about as well
  4. Horseradishthe original

Fit is the average pairing score against butter, vinegar, egg, cream. 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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