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Sauce

Gravies and Sauces

A sauce made from boiled egg yolks, oil or butter, mustard, vinegar, and salt or sugar.

From an old cookbook · modernised transcription
From a historical cookbook (Internet Archive) · 7 ingredients
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Why it works: Mustard and vinegar are a kitchen classic. They rank in the top 7% of all ingredient pairs, and cooks put them together in 14,067 recipes. Both carry isobutyraldehyde, which smells malty, green. The science ↓

Gravies and Sauces

Ingredients

Directions

Prepare the yolks

  1. Boil the eggs for 12 minutes, then place them in cold water until cool.

  2. Sieve the yolks into a bowl using a wooden spoon.

Make the sauce

  1. Mix the yolks with water or cream, then add oil or melted butter.

  2. Gradually incorporate salt or sugar and mustard until smooth.

  3. Slowly add vinegar, mixing until fully combined.

Garnish and serve

  1. Chop the egg white and use it to garnish the salad.

  2. Pour the sauce into the bottom of the salad bowl and do not stir until ready to serve.

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. Mustard + vinegartop 7% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together14,067 recipes

    Shared aroma: isobutyraldehyde (malty, green).

  2. Cream + buttertop 8% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together41,516 recipes

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

  3. Cream + sugartop 9% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together43,450 recipes

    Shared aroma: 2,3-butanedione (butter, sweet).

  4. Sugar + vinegartop 15% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together20,806 recipes

    Shared aroma: beta-damascenone (apple, rose).

  5. Egg + buttertop 17% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together118,967 recipes

    Shared aroma: decanal (soap, orange peel).

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

What each ingredient does

Hard-boiled egg yolks
Emulsify with oil or butter to form a thick, smooth sauce body.
Oil or melted butter
Supplies fat that is dispersed into the yolks, giving the sauce richness and body.
Vinegar
Adds acidity that brightens the sauce and balances the richness of the fat.
Mustard
Its natural emulsifiers help hold the oil and yolk mixture together smoothly.

The step that matters

Slowly add vinegar, mixing until fully combined. Adding acid too quickly can break the emulsion, so the sauce separates instead of staying smooth and thick. Adding it gradually and mixing well lets the yolk lecithin keep the fat dispersed.

Swap the mustard

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

  1. Mustardthe original
  2. Capsicumfits about as well
  3. Chivefits about as well
  4. Cucumberfits about as well

Fit is the average pairing score against egg, cream, butter, sugar, 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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