Skip to main content
Sauce

Dutch Sauce

A vinaigrette-like sauce made with egg yolks, olive oil, vinegar, water, salt, cayenne pepper, and parsley.

From an old cookbook · modernised transcription
From a historical cookbook (Internet Archive) · 7 ingredients
Jump to recipe ↓
Dutch Sauce

Why it works: Pepper and parsley match in chemistry and in kitchens. They rank in the top 2% of all ingredient pairs, and cooks put them together in 34,122 recipes. Both carry 4'-methylacetophenone, which smells bitter almond. The science ↓

Dutch Sauce

Ingredients

Directions

  1. In a bowl, mix the egg yolks, olive oil, vinegar, and hot water.

  2. Place the bowl over a pot of simmering water and cook until the mixture thickens, stirring constantly.

  3. Remove from heat and stir in the salt, cayenne, and parsley.

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. Pepper + parsleytop 2% of all pairs
    Smell alikestrong
    Cooked together34,122 recipes

    Shared aroma: 4'-methylacetophenone (bitter almond).

  2. Olive + parsleytop 6% of all pairs
    Smell alikestrong
    Cooked together9,649 recipes

    Shared aroma: 2,4-decadienal (seaweed).

  3. Olive + vinegartop 10% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together12,297 recipes

    Shared aroma: isoamyl acetate (banana, fruity).

  4. Olive + peppertop 11% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together30,263 recipes

    Shared aroma: 2,4-decadienal (seaweed).

  5. Vinegar + peppertop 14% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together27,814 recipes

    Shared aroma: 4'-methylacetophenone (bitter almond).

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

What each ingredient does

Egg yolks
Emulsify the oil and water and thicken the sauce as they cook gently.
Olive oil
Adds richness and fat that gives the sauce a smooth, silky body.
Vinegar
Adds acidity that sharpens the flavour and balances the richness of the yolks and oil.
Hot water
Loosens the mixture so it can thicken gently into a pourable sauce.

The step that matters

Cook over simmering water while stirring constantly. Egg yolks thicken from gentle heat but scramble if they get too hot. Constant stirring over simmering water, not boiling, spreads the heat evenly and keeps the sauce smooth.

Swap the parsley

How well each one fits the dish's main ingredients (egg, olive, vinegar, pepper):

  1. Tarragonfits about as well
  2. Parsleythe original
  3. Dillfits about as well
  4. Garlicfits less well

Fit is the average pairing score against egg, olive, vinegar, 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.

You might also like

Wine Sauce (for stewed fruit)Wine Sauce (for stewed fruit)186 recipesCaper SauceCaper Sauce180 recipesBrown SauceBrown Sauce141 recipesCurry SauceCurry Sauce59 recipes