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Sauce

Dutch Sauce

A creamy sauce made with butter, egg yolks, lime juice, nutmeg, cayenne pepper, salt, and optional tarragon.

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

Why it works: Lime and pepper match in chemistry and in kitchens. They rank in the top 2% of all ingredient pairs, and cooks put them together in 3,491 recipes. Both carry beta-phellandrene, which smells minty, terpene. The science ↓

Dutch Sauce

Ingredients

Directions

  1. Melt the butter and whip it until smooth.

  2. Whisk in the egg yolks until well combined.

  3. Add lime juice, nutmeg, cayenne pepper, and salt.

  4. Be careful not to let the egg curdle.

  5. If using, chop the tarragon leaves finely and stir them into the sauce.

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. Lime + peppertop 2% of all pairs
    Smell alikestrong
    Cooked together3,491 recipes

    Shared aroma: beta-phellandrene (minty, terpene).

  2. Lime + tarragontop 3% of all pairs
    Smell alikestrong
    Cooked together54 recipes

    Shared aroma: beta-phellandrene (minty, terpene).

  3. Nutmeg + tarragontop 4% of all pairs
    Smell alikestrong
    Cooked together213 recipes

    Shared aroma: estragole (anise, licorice).

  4. Pepper + tarragontop 5% of all pairs
    Smell alikestrong
    Cooked together2,399 recipes

    Shared aroma: estragole (anise, licorice).

  5. Lime + nutmegtop 5% of all pairs
    Smell alikestrong
    Cooked together236 recipes

    Shared aroma: beta-phellandrene (minty, terpene).

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

What each ingredient does

Egg yolks
Emulsify with the butter and thicken the sauce as they gently heat.
Melted butter
Adds richness and a smooth, silky texture to the sauce.
Lime juice
Adds acidity that brightens the rich butter and yolk flavor.

The step that matters

Keep the egg from curdling. Egg yolks set when they get too hot, so they can scramble and turn grainy. Whisk the yolks in gradually and keep the sauce warm rather than hot so they thicken smoothly.

Swap the tarragon

The recipe marks tarragon as optional. How well each one fits the dish's main ingredients (butter, egg, lime, nutmeg, pepper):

  1. Parsleyfits better
  2. Cinnamonfits better
  3. Cardamomfits about as well
  4. Tarragonthe original

Fit is the average pairing score against butter, egg, lime, nutmeg, 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.

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