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Hollandaise Sauce

A sauce made with butter, flour, egg yolks, lemon juice, salt, cayenne, and parsley.

From an old cookbook · modernised transcription
From a historical cookbook (Internet Archive) · 8 ingredients
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Why it works: Lemon and parsley match in chemistry and in kitchens. They rank in the top 1% of all ingredient pairs, and cooks put them together in 14,037 recipes. Both carry beta-phellandrene, which smells minty, terpene. The science ↓

Hollandaise Sauce

Ingredients

Directions

  1. Cream the flour and butter together.

  2. Add the egg yolks one at a time, beating thoroughly after each addition.

  3. Stir in the salt, cayenne, and boiling water.

  4. Cook in a double boiler, stirring constantly until thickened.

  5. Remove from heat and add the lemon juice.

  6. Stir in the chopped parsley before serving.

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. Lemon + parsleytop 1% of all pairs
    Smell alikestrong
    Cooked together14,037 recipes

    Shared aroma: beta-phellandrene (minty, terpene).

  2. Butter + flourtop 12% of all pairs
    Smell alikelow
    Cooked together124,287 recipes

    Shared aroma: isobutyraldehyde (malty, green).

  3. Flour + parsleytop 12% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together16,675 recipes

    Shared aroma: isobutyraldehyde (malty, green).

  4. Butter + parsleytop 15% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together28,563 recipes

    Shared aroma: trans-2-hexenal (green, leafy).

  5. Egg + flourtop 15% of all pairs
    Smell alikelow
    Cooked together106,462 recipes

    Shared aroma: isobutyraldehyde (malty, green).

Butter and flour 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

Egg yolks
Emulsify and thicken the sauce as they set with gentle heat, giving it body and richness.
Butter
Provides fat for richness and a smooth, silky mouthfeel.
Flour
Stabilizes the emulsion and helps the sauce thicken without breaking.
Lemon juice
Adds acidity that brightens the rich fat and balances the flavor.

The step that matters

Cook in a double boiler, stirring constantly until thickened. Egg yolks thicken at moderate heat but scramble if overheated. Gentle, constant stirring over indirect heat keeps the sauce smooth and prevents curdling.

“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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