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Sauce

Dutch Sauce for Meat or Fish

A quick sauce made from water, vinegar, egg yolks, and lemon juice, thickened and poured over meat or fish.

From an old cookbook · modernised transcription
From a historical cookbook (Internet Archive) · 4 ingredients
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Why it works: Egg and lemon are a kitchen classic. They rank in the top 19% of all ingredient pairs, and cooks put them together in 44,316 recipes. Both carry (e,e)-2,4-decadienal, which smells fatty, deep fried. The science ↓

Dutch Sauce for Meat or Fish

Ingredients

Directions

Make the sauce

  1. In a warm pan, combine the water and vinegar.

  2. Whisk in the beaten egg yolks to thicken the mixture.

  3. Heat gently, ensuring it does not boil.

  4. Squeeze in lemon juice to taste.

Serve

  1. Pour the sauce over meat or fish.

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. Egg + lemontop 19% of all pairs
    Smell alikelow
    Cooked together44,316 recipes

    Shared aroma: (e,e)-2,4-decadienal (fatty, deep fried).

  2. Vinegar + lemontop 20% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together7,334 recipes

    Shared aroma: acetic acid (sour, vinegar).

  3. Vinegar + eggtop 33% of all pairs
    Smell alikelow
    Cooked together12,922 recipes

    Shared aroma: acetic acid (sour, vinegar).

Egg and lemon barely smell alike, yet cooks put them together in 44,316 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
Thicken the sauce as their proteins set with gentle heat, giving it a smooth, rich body.
Vinegar
Adds sharp acidity that balances the richness of the egg yolks.
Lemon juice
Adds extra brightness and acidity, adjusted to taste.

The step that matters

Heat gently, without boiling. Egg yolk proteins set at moderate heat and thicken the sauce. If the mixture gets too hot or boils, the yolks scramble and curdle, leaving a grainy texture instead of a smooth sauce.

Swap the lemon

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

  1. Currantfits about as well
  2. Strawberryfits about as well
  3. Raspberryfits about as well
  4. Lemonthe original

Fit is the average pairing score against vinegar, 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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