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Sauce

Hollandaise Sauce

A sauce made from butter, egg yolks, lemon juice, cayenne, pepper, and salt, thickened over a bain‑marie.

From an old cookbook · modernised transcription
By F. L. Gillette and Hugo Ziemann · From a historical cookbook (Project Gutenberg) · 7 ingredients
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Why it works: Pepper and lemon match in chemistry and in kitchens. They rank in the top 3% of all ingredient pairs, and cooks put them together in 27,047 recipes. Both carry trans-2-nonenal, which smells cardboard, fatty. The science ↓

Hollandaise Sauce

Ingredients

Directions

Make the base

  1. Combine butter, lemon juice, egg yolks, cayenne pepper, boiling water, and salt in a bowl.

  2. Beat the butter to a cream.

  3. Add the egg yolks one by one, beating after each addition.

  4. Add the lemon juice, pepper, and salt, beating thoroughly.

Cook over water

  1. Place the bowl over a saucepan of boiling water (bain-marie).

  2. Beat with an egg-beater until the mixture begins to thicken, about one minute.

  3. Add the boiling water, beating continuously.

  4. Stir until the sauce thickens to a soft custard consistency.

  5. Stir a few minutes after removing from the heat, being careful not to overcook.

Nutrition, whole recipe (rough)

102Calories
7 gProtein
6 gFat
7 gCarbs

Counts 5 of 6 ingredients. The other 1 aren't in our nutrition table and add nothing above, so the real totals are higher.

What these numbers assume: 5 portions
IngredientPortion assumedkcal
Egg1 large egg (50g)78
Lemonjuice of 1 lemon (48ml)12
Cayenne1 tsp (1.8g)6
Black Pepper1 tsp ground (2.3g)6
Salt1 tsp (6g)0
Waternot in our table0

One typical portion per ingredient; the recipe's quantities are not counted. A rough guide only, not for medical or dietary planning.

By F. L. Gillette and Hugo Ziemann. Recipe from a historical cookbook (Project Gutenberg).

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. See the original page.

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. Pepper + lemontop 3% of all pairs
    Smell alikestrong
    Cooked together27,047 recipes

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

  2. Egg + lemontop 19% of all pairs
    Smell alikelow
    Cooked together44,316 recipes

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

  3. Egg + peppertop 33% of all pairs
    Smell alikelow
    Cooked together50,580 recipes

    Shared aroma: 2-nonenal (fatty, green).

Egg and lemon barely smell alike, yet cooks put them together in 44,316 recipes: they 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

Eggs
Egg yolks emulsify with the butter and thicken into a smooth, custard-like sauce as they heat.
Butter (in the method)
Adds fat and richness, and its emulsion with the yolks gives the sauce a silky texture.
Lemon juice
Adds acidity that brightens the rich butter and balances the sweetness of the yolks.

The step that matters

Stir over gentle heat and remove before overcooking. Egg yolk proteins set as they warm, thickening the sauce. Too much heat or too long over the water bath makes them tighten and curdle, so the sauce turns grainy or scrambled instead of 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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