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Sauce

Hollandaise Sauce

A sauce made from Bechamel, egg yolks, lemon juice, butter, cayenne, and salt.

From an old cookbook · modernised transcription
From a historical cookbook (Internet Archive) · 6 ingredients
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Why it works: Lemon and pepper match in chemistry and in kitchens. They rank in the top 3% of all ingredient pairs, and 27,047 recipes mention both. Both carry trans-2-nonenal, which smells cardboard, fatty. The science ↓

Hollandaise Sauce

Ingredients

Directions

  1. Heat the Bechamel sauce until hot but not boiling.

  2. Stir in the egg yolks one at a time, cooking until thickened without boiling.

  3. Add the lemon juice, cayenne, and salt to taste.

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 + peppertop 3% of all pairs
    Aroma overlapstrong
    Mentioned together27,047 recipes

    Shared aroma: trans-2-nonenal (cardboard, fatty).

  2. Sauce + buttertop 15% of all pairs
    Aroma overlaplow
    Mentioned together15,338 recipes

    Shared aroma: ethanol (alcoholic, ethereal).

  3. Lemon + buttertop 16% of all pairs
    Aroma overlapmoderate
    Mentioned together41,227 recipes

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

  4. Butter + eggtop 17% of all pairs
    Aroma overlapmoderate
    Mentioned together118,967 recipes

    Shared aroma: decanal (soap, orange peel).

  5. Lemon + eggtop 19% of all pairs
    Aroma overlaplow
    Mentioned together44,316 recipes

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

Sauce and butter share little aroma chemistry, yet 15,338 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

Bechamel sauce
Provides the thickened base that gives the sauce its body and smooth texture.
Egg yolks
Thicken the sauce as they heat and add richness and a silky emulsified texture.
Melted butter
Adds fat for richness and a smooth, glossy mouthfeel.
Lemon juice
Adds acidity that brightens the flavour and cuts the richness of the butter and yolks.

The step that matters

Stir in the egg yolks without boiling. Egg yolk proteins set when heated, so if the sauce gets too hot the yolks scramble and the sauce turns grainy. Adding them one at a time and keeping the heat gentle lets them thicken it smoothly.

“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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