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Sauce

Hollandaise Sauce

A creamy sauce made with butter, flour, fish stock, egg yolk, and lemon juice.

From an old cookbook · modernised transcription
From a historical cookbook (Internet Archive) · 5 ingredients
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Why it works: Butter and fish are a kitchen classic. They rank in the top 12% of all ingredient pairs, and cooks put them together in 4,488 recipes. Both carry (z)-4-heptenal, which smells biscuit, cream. The science ↓

Hollandaise Sauce

Ingredients

Directions

The book gives no cooking times; the times in the steps were added in transcription, so check for doneness rather than trusting the clock.

  1. Melt the butter in a small saucepan over low heat.

  2. Stir in the flour and cook for 1 minute.

  3. Gradually add the fish stock, whisking until smooth.

  4. Remove from heat and let cool slightly.

  5. Whisk in the egg yolk and lemon juice until combined.

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 + fishtop 12% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together4,488 recipes

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

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

    Shared aroma: isobutyraldehyde (malty, green).

  3. Fish + lemontop 15% of all pairs
    Smell alikelow
    Cooked together1,889 recipes

    Shared aroma: 2-nonenal (fatty, green).

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

    Shared aroma: isobutyraldehyde (malty, green).

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

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

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

Butter
Adds richness and fat, carrying flavor and giving the sauce a smooth mouthfeel.
Flour
Thickens the sauce as it cooks with the butter, giving it body.
Fish stock
Provides the liquid base that the thickened roux is whisked into.
Egg yolk
Emulsifies and thickens the sauce, giving it a creamy, rich texture.
Lemon juice
Adds acidity that brightens the flavor and balances the richness of the butter and yolk.

The step that matters

Whisk in the egg yolk and lemon juice. Egg yolk thickens when gently heated, but if the sauce is too hot it can scramble. Letting the mixture cool slightly first helps keep it smooth and creamy.

Swap the lemon

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

  1. Raisinfits about as well
  2. Lemonthe original
  3. Coconutfits about as well
  4. Vanillafits less well

Fit is the average pairing score against butter, flour, fish, 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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