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Sauce Hollandaise

A rich, emulsified sauce made from egg yolks, butter, vinegar, peppercorns, salt, and nutmeg.

From an old cookbook · modernised transcription
From a historical cookbook (Internet Archive) · 6 ingredients
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Why it works: Butter and nutmeg are a kitchen classic. They rank in the top 16% of all ingredient pairs, and cooks put them together in 24,377 recipes. Both carry eucalyptol, which smells eucalyptus, herbal. The science ↓

Sauce Hollandaise

Ingredients

Directions

Make the vinegar base

  1. Pour vinegar into a small saucepan and add peppercorns and salt.

  2. Boil until reduced by half.

  3. Let cool.

Make the sauce

  1. Add the well-beaten yolks, butter, more salt if necessary, and nutmeg to the cooled vinegar mixture.

  2. Set the saucepan over low heat and stir until the mixture thickens to the consistency of cream.

  3. Remove from heat.

  4. Place the saucepan in another pan with warm water kept near the heat.

  5. Stir the sauce briskly with a spoon or whisk until frothy.

  6. Gradually add small pieces of butter while stirring until the sauce is light and smooth.

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 + nutmegtop 16% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together24,377 recipes

    Shared aroma: eucalyptol (eucalyptus, herbal).

  2. Egg + buttertop 17% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together118,967 recipes

    Shared aroma: decanal (soap, orange peel).

  3. Egg + nutmegtop 17% of all pairs
    Smell alikelow
    Cooked together24,744 recipes

    Shared aroma: acetic acid (sour, vinegar).

  4. Vinegar + buttertop 23% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together13,513 recipes

    Shared aroma: isoamyl acetate (banana, pear).

  5. Vinegar + nutmegtop 25% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together2,864 recipes

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

Egg and nutmeg barely smell alike, yet cooks put them together in 24,744 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

Egg yolks
Emulsify the butter and thicken the sauce as they gently cook.
Butter
Adds richness and fat that, emulsified with the yolks, gives a smooth, creamy texture.
Vinegar
Adds acidity that balances the richness of the butter and yolks.

The step that matters

Thickening the yolks over low heat. Egg yolks set at low temperatures, and above that range they scramble. Gentle heat and constant stirring keep the sauce smooth, while the warm-water bath and brisk whisking let the butter emulsify without curdling.

Swap the nutmeg

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

  1. Tarragonfits better
  2. Parsleyfits better
  3. Capersfits about as well
  4. Nutmegthe original

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