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Dutch Sauce

A sauce made with butter, flour, water, egg yolks, mustard, vinegar, oil, broth, cream, lemon juice, salt, and pepper.

From an old cookbook · modernised transcription
From a historical cookbook (Internet Archive) · 15 ingredients
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Dutch Sauce

Why it works: Lemon and pepper 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 ↓

Dutch Sauce

Ingredients

Directions

Make the first base

  1. In a saucepan, melt 1 ounce of butter and 1 ounce of flour over medium heat, stirring constantly until it bubbles.

  2. Gradually add ½ cup of boiling water, then remove from heat.

  3. Stir in 3 egg yolks one at a time.

  4. Add ¼ teaspoon of dry mustard, 1 tablespoon of vinegar, and 3 tablespoons of oil, stirring constantly until smooth.

Make the cream sauce

  1. In another saucepan, melt ¼ pound of butter and 1 tablespoon of flour, cooking briefly.

  2. Add 1 cup of broth and 1 cup of cream, then stir in 2 beaten egg yolks and the juice of 1 lemon.

  3. Season with salt and pepper, keeping the sauce hot without boiling.

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. Lemon + peppertop 3% of all pairs
    Smell alikestrong
    Cooked together27,047 recipes

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

  2. Mustard + vinegartop 7% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together14,067 recipes

    Shared aroma: isobutyraldehyde (malty, green).

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

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

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

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

  5. Mustard + lemontop 11% of all pairs
    Smell alikestrong
    Cooked together3,816 recipes

    Shared aroma: eucalyptol (eucalyptus, herbal).

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

What each ingredient does

Egg yolks
Enrich the sauce and thicken it as they gently heat, giving it a smooth, rich body.
Butter
Adds richness and fat, carrying flavor and giving the sauce a smooth mouthfeel.
Flour
Forms a roux with the butter that thickens the sauce as the liquids are added.
Cream
Adds richness and body, softening the sauce's texture.
Lemon juice
Adds acidity that brightens the rich, buttery sauce.

The step that matters

Keep the sauce hot without boiling. Egg yolks thicken through gentle heat but scramble and curdle if the sauce boils, so the sauce must stay warm and be stirred.

Swap the lemon

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

  1. Lemonthe original
  2. Avocadofits about as well
  3. Limefits about as well
  4. Cherryfits less well

Fit is the average pairing score against butter, flour, egg, mustard, vinegar, cream, 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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