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Sauce Hollandaise

A creamy sauce made from butter, egg yolks, stock, and lemon juice.

From an old cookbook · modernised transcription
From a historical cookbook (Internet Archive) · 7 ingredients
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Why it works: Flour and butter are a kitchen classic. They rank in the top 12% of all ingredient pairs, and cooks put them together in 124,287 recipes. Both carry isobutyraldehyde, which smells malty, green. The science ↓

Sauce Hollandaise

Ingredients

Directions

  1. In a saucepan, cook the flour in the butter over medium heat.

  2. Slowly add the stock and bring to a boil.

  3. Remove from heat and whisk in the beaten egg yolks, lemon juice, and onion juice if using.

  4. Return to low heat and stir constantly until it begins to thicken.

  5. Add the butter and whisk until dissolved 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. Flour + buttertop 12% of all pairs
    Smell alikelow
    Cooked together124,287 recipes

    Shared aroma: isobutyraldehyde (malty, green).

  2. Butter + oniontop 15% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together42,912 recipes

    Shared aroma: decanal (soap, orange peel).

  3. Flour + eggtop 15% of all pairs
    Smell alikelow
    Cooked together106,462 recipes

    Shared aroma: isobutyraldehyde (malty, green).

  4. Butter + lemontop 16% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together41,227 recipes

    Shared aroma: 3-hexenal (apple, fruity).

  5. Veal + lemontop 17% of all pairs
    Smell alikelow
    Cooked together4,580 recipes

    Shared aroma: 3-hexenal (apple, fruity).

Flour and butter barely smell alike, yet cooks put them together in 124,287 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

Flour
Thickens the sauce as it cooks with the butter and stock.
Egg yolks
Thicken and enrich the sauce, giving it a smooth, rich texture.
Stock
Provides the liquid base and savory flavor of the sauce.
Butter
Adds richness and fat, giving the sauce a smooth, silky mouthfeel.
Lemon juice
Adds acidity that brightens the rich egg and butter flavors.

The step that matters

Return to low heat and stir constantly until it begins to thicken.. Egg yolks scramble if they get too hot, which curdles the sauce. Gentle, constant stirring over low heat lets the yolks thicken it smoothly.

Swap the onion

The recipe marks onion as optional. How well each one fits the dish's main ingredients (flour, butter, veal, egg, lemon):

  1. Shallotfits better
  2. Leekfits better
  3. Asparagusfits better
  4. Onionthe original

Fit is the average pairing score against flour, butter, veal, egg, lemon. 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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