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Hollandaise Sauce

A sauce made with vinegar, milk, mustard, cayenne, paprika, eggs, and butter or oil.

From an old cookbook · modernised transcription
From a historical cookbook (Internet Archive) · 8 ingredients
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Why it works: Milk and butter are a kitchen classic. They rank in the top 7% of all ingredient pairs, and cooks put them together in 81,283 recipes. Both carry (z)-4-heptenal, which smells biscuit, cream. The science ↓

Hollandaise Sauce

Ingredients

Directions

Prepare

  1. Boil the vinegar with the seasonings.

  2. Separate the yolks and whites of the eggs, beating them separately.

Make the sauce

  1. Bring the milk to a boil and pour it over the yolks.

  2. Add the boiling vinegar and stir on the stove until it thickens like custard; do not let it boil or it will curdle.

  3. Remove from heat and beat the whipped egg whites with the melted butter or oil.

  4. Store for future use and serve warm or cold.

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. Milk + buttertop 7% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together81,283 recipes

    Shared aroma: (z)-4-heptenal (biscuit, cream).

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

    Shared aroma: isobutyraldehyde (malty, green).

  3. Mustard + peppertop 9% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together15,430 recipes

    Shared aroma: 2-isopropyl-3-methoxypyrazine (earthy, pea).

  4. Vinegar + peppertop 14% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together27,814 recipes

    Shared aroma: 4'-methylacetophenone (bitter almond).

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

    Shared aroma: decanal (soap, orange peel).

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

What each ingredient does

Eggs
Yolks thicken the sauce as they set gently, and whites add lightness when beaten.
Oil or melted butter
Adds fat and richness, giving the sauce a smooth, silky mouthfeel.
Vinegar
Adds acidity that sharpens the flavor and balances the richness of the fat.
Sweet milk
Adds liquid and mild dairy flavor, helping make a smooth, custard-like base.

The step that matters

Stirring the custard without boiling. Egg yolks thicken as they warm gently, but high heat makes them scramble and curdle. Keep the heat low and stir steadily until the sauce coats a spoon.

Swap the mustard

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

  1. Capsicumfits better
  2. Potatofits better
  3. Asparagusfits about as well
  4. Mustardthe original

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