Name: Hollandaise Sauce
Ingredients: 1 teaspoon lemon juice; 1 teaspoon vinegar; ½ teaspoon tarragon vinegar; 2 tablespoons cream; 1 ounce butter; 2 egg yolks; Cayenne pepper to taste; Salt to taste

Why it works: Lemon and tarragon match in chemistry and in kitchens. They rank in the top 1% of all ingredient pairs, and 1,137 recipes mention both. Both carry beta-phellandrene, which smells minty, terpene. The science ↓

Hollandaise Sauce

Ingredients

Directions

Combine lemon juice, vinegar, tarragon vinegar, egg yolks, and cream in a bowl.
Place the bowl over a saucepan of boiling water.
Stir constantly with a wooden spoon until the mixture thickens.

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.

Lemon + tarragontop 1% of all pairs

Aroma overlapstrong

Mentioned together1,137 recipes

Shared aroma: beta-phellandrene (minty, terpene).
Lemon + peppertop 3% of all pairs

Aroma overlapstrong

Mentioned together27,047 recipes

Shared aroma: trans-2-nonenal (cardboard, fatty).
Tarragon + peppertop 5% of all pairs

Aroma overlapstrong

Mentioned together2,399 recipes

Shared aroma: estragole (anise, licorice).
Vinegar + tarragontop 7% of all pairs

Aroma overlapmoderate

Mentioned together2,547 recipes

Shared aroma: isobutyraldehyde (malty, green).
Cream + buttertop 8% of all pairs

Aroma overlapmoderate

Mentioned together41,516 recipes

Shared aroma: delta-dodecalactone (sweet, creamy).