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Sauce

Sauce Hollandaise

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

From an old cookbook · modernised transcription
From a historical cookbook (Internet Archive) · 7 ingredients
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Why it works: Tarragon and parsley match in chemistry and in kitchens. They rank in the top 1% of all ingredient pairs, and cooks put them together in 1,563 recipes. Both carry estragole, which smells anise, licorice. The science ↓

Sauce Hollandaise

Ingredients

Directions

  1. Rub together the flour and 2 tablespoons of butter.

  2. Gradually add the boiling water and stir over heat for a moment.

  3. Remove from heat and add 1 tablespoon of butter, the beaten egg yolks, and tarragon vinegar.

  4. Strain the mixture and stir in the chopped parsley.

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 + parsleytop 1% of all pairs
    Smell alikestrong
    Cooked together1,563 recipes

    Shared aroma: estragole (anise, licorice).

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

    Shared aroma: isobutyraldehyde (malty, green).

  3. Flour + buttertop 12% of all pairs
    Smell alikelow
    Cooked together124,287 recipes

    Shared aroma: isobutyraldehyde (malty, green).

  4. Flour + tarragontop 12% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together788 recipes

    Shared aroma: isobutyraldehyde (malty, green).

  5. Flour + parsleytop 12% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together16,675 recipes

    Shared aroma: isobutyraldehyde (malty, green).

Flour and butter barely smell alike, yet cooks put them together in 124,287 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

Flour
Thickens the sauce by swelling in the hot water as it cooks.
Butter
Adds richness and a smooth, velvety texture to the sauce.
Egg yolks
Emulsify with the fat and add body, setting slightly as they warm.
Tarragon vinegar
Adds acidity that brightens the rich sauce and balances its flavour.

The step that matters

Add the egg yolks off the heat. Egg yolks can scramble if they get too hot, which makes the sauce grainy. Removing the pan from the heat before adding them lets them thicken gently and emulsify smoothly with the butter.

Swap the parsley

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

  1. Capersfits better
  2. Parsleythe original
  3. Nutmegfits less well
  4. Dillfits less well

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