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Sauce

Sauce Hollandaise

A sauce made from egg yolks, clarified butter, salt, and tarragon vinegar.

From an old cookbook · modernised transcription
From a historical cookbook (Internet Archive) · 4 ingredients
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Why it works: Tarragon and vinegar are a kitchen classic. They rank in the top 7% of all ingredient pairs, and cooks put them together in 2,547 recipes. Both carry isobutyraldehyde, which smells malty, green. The science ↓

Sauce Hollandaise

Ingredients

Directions

  1. Beat the yolks of the eggs until creamy.

  2. Gradually add the clarified butter while beating continuously.

  3. Place the bowl over a kettle of hot water while adding the butter.

  4. Add the salt and tarragon vinegar, mixing well.

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

    Shared aroma: isobutyraldehyde (malty, green).

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

    Shared aroma: decanal (soap, orange peel).

  3. Butter + tarragontop 17% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together1,572 recipes

    Shared aroma: anethole (sweet, anise).

  4. Egg + tarragontop 22% of all pairs
    Smell alikelow
    Cooked together1,789 recipes

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

  5. Butter + vinegartop 23% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together13,513 recipes

    Shared aroma: isoamyl acetate (banana, pear).

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 set gently with heat.
Clarified butter
Provides the rich fat that forms the smooth body of the sauce.
Tarragon vinegar
Adds acidity that brightens the rich butter and egg flavour.

The step that matters

Adding the butter gradually over hot water. Egg yolks thicken gently when warm but scramble if overheated or if butter is added too fast. Slow, continuous beating lets the yolks emulsify the fat into a smooth sauce.

“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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