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Sauce

Hollandaise Sauce

A sauce made by emulsifying egg yolks, butter, and acid with oil.

From an old cookbook · modernised transcription
From a historical cookbook (Internet Archive) · 7 ingredients
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Why it works: Lemon and mustard match in chemistry and in kitchens. They rank in the top 11% of all ingredient pairs, and 3,816 recipes mention both. Both carry eucalyptol, which smells eucalyptus, herbal. The science ↓

Hollandaise Sauce

Ingredients

Directions

  1. In a saucepan, melt the butter and mix in the flour over medium heat.

  2. Gradually add the boiling water while stirring continuously.

  3. Remove from heat and stir in the egg yolks, lemon juice or vinegar, salad oil, and mustard if desired.

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 aroma chemistry they share, and how many recipes mention both.

  1. Lemon + mustardtop 11% of all pairs
    Aroma overlapstrong
    Mentioned together3,816 recipes

    Shared aroma: eucalyptol (eucalyptus, herbal).

  2. Butter + flourtop 12% of all pairs
    Aroma overlaplow
    Mentioned together124,287 recipes

    Shared aroma: isobutyraldehyde (malty, green).

  3. Flour + mustardtop 13% of all pairs
    Aroma overlapmoderate
    Mentioned together5,066 recipes

    Shared aroma: isobutyraldehyde (malty, green).

  4. Flour + eggtop 15% of all pairs
    Aroma overlaplow
    Mentioned together106,462 recipes

    Shared aroma: isobutyraldehyde (malty, green).

  5. Butter + lemontop 16% of all pairs
    Aroma overlapmoderate
    Mentioned together41,227 recipes

    Shared aroma: 3-hexenal (apple, fruity).

Butter and flour share little aroma chemistry, yet 124,287 recipes mention both: they likely 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, rounded mouthfeel to the sauce.
Flour
Thickens the melted butter into a roux that gives the sauce body.
Boiling water
Loosens the roux into a pourable liquid base for the sauce.
Egg yolks
Emulsify the fat and liquid and thicken the sauce as they gently set.
Lemon juice or vinegar
Adds acidity that brightens flavor and balances the richness of the fat.
Salad oil
Adds fat that enriches the sauce and helps keep the emulsion stable.

The step that matters

Stirring in the egg yolks off the heat. Egg yolk proteins set when overheated, so they can scramble and turn the sauce grainy. Removing the pan from the heat first and stirring steadily lets the yolks thicken the sauce smoothly.

Flavor stand-ins for the mustard

The recipe marks mustard as optional. How well each one fits the dish's main ingredients (butter, flour, egg, lemon):

  1. Shallotbetter flavor fit
  2. Arrowrootbetter flavor fit
  3. Leekbetter flavor fit
  4. Mustardthe original

Fit is the average pairing score against butter, flour, egg, lemon. Candidates are from the same food group and used in at least 100 recipes. This compares flavor only: it does not check the job the ingredient does in the dish (bulk, moisture, acidity, structure).

“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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