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Dutch Sauce

A thickened sauce made from vinegar, salt, pepper, egg yolks, and butter, cooked slowly and emulsified with water.

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

Why it works: Egg and butter are a kitchen classic. They rank in the top 17% of all ingredient pairs, and cooks put them together in 118,967 recipes. Both carry decanal, which smells soap, orange peel. The science ↓

Dutch Sauce

Ingredients

Directions

Make the base

  1. Combine vinegar, salt, and white pepper in a quart saucepan.

  2. Reduce over heat until about 2 teaspoons of vinegar remain.

  3. Remove from heat and add cold water and egg yolks, ensuring no egg whites remain.

  4. Return to gentle heat, stirring with a wooden spoon until yolks begin to set, then remove from heat.

Add the butter

  1. Divide butter into five portions. Add the first portion to the egg mixture and stir until melted.

  2. Place back on heat for one minute, then add the second portion of butter. Repeat until all butter is melted, ensuring each portion is fully dissolved before adding the next.

  3. After mixing in the third portion, add 1 tablespoon of cold water to prevent curdling. Add more cold water if necessary.

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. Egg + buttertop 17% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together118,967 recipes

    Shared aroma: decanal (soap, orange peel).

  2. Vinegar + white peppertop 20% of all pairs
    Smell alikelow
    Cooked together1,154 recipes

    Shared aroma: isobutyraldehyde (malty, green).

  3. White pepper + eggtop 21% of all pairs
    Smell alikelow
    Cooked together2,312 recipes

    Shared aroma: 2-methylbutyraldehyde (malty, chocolate).

  4. Vinegar + buttertop 23% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together13,513 recipes

    Shared aroma: isoamyl acetate (banana, pear).

  5. White pepper + buttertop 28% of all pairs
    Smell alikelow
    Cooked together3,814 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
Emulsify the butter and thicken the sauce as they gently set.
Butter
Provides richness and a smooth, silky texture when melted in portions.
Vinegar
Adds acidity that sharpens the flavor and balances the richness of the butter.

The step that matters

Adding the butter in portions over gentle heat. Egg yolks can curdle if the mixture gets too hot or the butter is added too quickly. Adding butter in small portions, each fully melted, lets the yolks emulsify it smoothly. Cold water helps cool the mixture and stabilize it.

Swap the white pepper

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

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

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