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Hollandaise Sauce

A sauce made with butter, flour, onion, tarragon vinegar, lemon juice, egg yolks, bay leaf, boiling water, salt, and pepper.

From an old cookbook · modernised transcription
From a historical cookbook (Internet Archive) · 10 ingredients
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Why it works: Tarragon and lemon match in chemistry and in kitchens. They rank in the top 1% of all ingredient pairs, and cooks put them together in 1,137 recipes. Both carry beta-phellandrene, which smells minty, terpene. The science ↓

Hollandaise Sauce

Ingredients

Directions

Make the base

  1. Combine bay leaf, onion, and vinegar in a small saucepan.

  2. Bring to a boil and then cool.

  3. In a double boiler, rub together the butter and flour.

  4. Gradually add the strained vinegar mixture and stir until thickened.

Finish and serve

  1. Remove from heat and stir in the egg yolks one at a time, stirring gently.

  2. Reheat briefly, then add salt and pepper.

  3. Strain and serve immediately.

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. Tarragon + lemontop 1% of all pairs
    Smell alikestrong
    Cooked together1,137 recipes

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

  2. Tarragon + vinegartop 7% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together2,547 recipes

    Shared aroma: isobutyraldehyde (malty, green).

  3. Onion + tarragontop 12% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together1,568 recipes

    Shared aroma: coumarin (sweet, hay).

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

    Shared aroma: isobutyraldehyde (malty, green).

  5. Flour + tarragontop 12% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together788 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

Butter
Adds richness and a smooth, silky mouthfeel to the sauce.
Flour
Thickens the butter into a stable base that helps the sauce hold together.
Egg yolks
Emulsify with the butter and set gently with heat to give the sauce its body.
Tarragon vinegar
Adds acidity that sharpens the flavour and balances the richness of the butter and yolks.
Lemon juice
Adds bright acidity that lifts the flavour of the rich sauce.

The step that matters

Stir in the egg yolks gently off the heat. Egg yolks scramble if they get too hot, turning the sauce grainy. Removing it from heat and stirring gently lets the yolks thicken smoothly and emulsify with the butter.

Swap the white pepper

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

  1. Parsleyfits better
  2. Capersfits better
  3. Thymefits better
  4. White pepperthe original

Fit is the average pairing score against butter, flour, onion, tarragon, vinegar, lemon, 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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