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Dutch Sauce

A sauce made with vinegar, egg yolks, butter, and seasonings.

From an old cookbook · modernised transcription
From a historical cookbook (Internet Archive) · 6 ingredients
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Dutch Sauce

Why it works: Egg and butter are a kitchen classic. They rank in the top 17% of all ingredient pairs, and cooks put them together in 118,967 recipes. Both carry decanal, which smells soap, orange peel. The science ↓

Dutch Sauce

Ingredients

Directions

  1. Reduce the vinegar to 1 tablespoon with salt and pepper in a clean saucepan.

  2. Remove the saucepan from heat and add cold water and egg yolks.

  3. Return the saucepan to heat and stir without boiling.

  4. Divide the butter into 6 parts and add one part to the saucepan, stirring until melted.

  5. Remove from heat and add another part of butter, repeating until all butter is incorporated.

  6. Add a tablespoon of cold water as needed to prevent thickening.

  7. Season with pepper and salt, and serve hot.

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

    Shared aroma: decanal (soap, orange peel).

  2. Vinegar + white peppertop 20% of all pairs
    Smell alikelow
    Cooked together1,154 recipes

    Shared aroma: isobutyraldehyde (malty, green).

  3. White pepper + eggtop 21% of all pairs
    Smell alikelow
    Cooked together2,312 recipes

    Shared aroma: 2-methylbutyraldehyde (malty, chocolate).

  4. Vinegar + buttertop 23% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together13,513 recipes

    Shared aroma: isoamyl acetate (banana, pear).

  5. White pepper + buttertop 28% of all pairs
    Smell alikelow
    Cooked together3,814 recipes

    Shared aroma: eucalyptol (eucalyptus, herbal).

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

What each ingredient does

Egg yolks
Emulsify the butter and thicken the sauce as they gently heat.
Butter
Provides fat and richness, giving the sauce a smooth, glossy body.
Vinegar
Adds acidity that brightens the sauce and balances the richness of the butter.

The step that matters

Return the saucepan to heat and stir without boiling. Egg yolks scramble if they get too hot, which curdles the sauce. Gentle heat and constant stirring let the yolks thicken slowly while the butter emulsifies smoothly.

Swap the white pepper

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

  1. Tarragonfits better
  2. Parsleyfits better
  3. Capersfits better
  4. White pepperthe original

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