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Dutch Sauce

A creamy sauce made with butter, cream, egg yolks, tarragon vinegar, pepper, salt, and mustard.

From an old cookbook · modernised transcription
From a historical cookbook (Internet Archive) · 7 ingredients
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Dutch Sauce

Why it works: Tarragon and mustard match in chemistry and in kitchens. They rank in the top 1% of all ingredient pairs, and cooks put them together in 901 recipes. Both carry methyleugenol, which smells clove, spice. The science ↓

Dutch Sauce

Ingredients

Directions

Prepare

  1. Combine all ingredients in a bowl.

  2. Place the bowl in a pan of boiling water over heat.

Cook and thicken

  1. Beat the mixture continuously until it thickens and becomes creamy.

  2. If the sauce curdles, add 2 more egg yolks and mix well.

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.

Photo for illustrative purposes only · Contact us to use it

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. Tarragon + mustardtop 1% of all pairs
    Smell alikestrong
    Cooked together901 recipes

    Shared aroma: methyleugenol (clove, spice).

  2. Tarragon + peppertop 5% of all pairs
    Smell alikestrong
    Cooked together2,399 recipes

    Shared aroma: estragole (anise, licorice).

  3. Tarragon + vinegartop 7% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together2,547 recipes

    Shared aroma: isobutyraldehyde (malty, green).

  4. Vinegar + mustardtop 7% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together14,067 recipes

    Shared aroma: isobutyraldehyde (malty, green).

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

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

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

What each ingredient does

Egg yolks
Their proteins set as they heat, thickening the sauce and giving it a creamy body.
Fresh butter
Adds richness and fat, helping the sauce feel smooth and silky on the palate.
Cream
Adds body and richness, and its fat keeps the set custard-like sauce soft and smooth.
Tarragon vinegar
Adds acidity and a sharp, aromatic note that balances the richness of the butter and yolks.

The step that matters

Keep the heat gentle and keep beating. Egg yolk proteins set as they warm, so too much heat or stopping the beating lets them tighten and scramble, causing curdling. Constant stirring over gentle heat spreads the heat evenly and keeps the sauce smooth.

Swap the mustard

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

  1. Shallotfits about as well
  2. Mustardthe original
  3. Chivefits about as well
  4. Asparagusfits about as well

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