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Sauce

Dutch Sauce

A sauce made with butter, vinegar, water, egg yolks, lemon juice, and flour.

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

Why it works: Butter and flour are a kitchen classic. They rank in the top 12% of all ingredient pairs, and cooks put them together in 124,287 recipes. Both carry isobutyraldehyde, which smells malty, green. The science ↓

Dutch Sauce

Ingredients

Directions

  1. Combine butter, vinegar, water, and egg yolks in a small saucepan.

  2. Stir over low heat until the sauce thickens, about 10 minutes. Do not let it boil, or it will curdle.

  3. Remove from heat and stir in the lemon juice.

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. Butter + flourtop 12% of all pairs
    Smell alikelow
    Cooked together124,287 recipes

    Shared aroma: isobutyraldehyde (malty, green).

  2. Egg + flourtop 15% of all pairs
    Smell alikelow
    Cooked together106,462 recipes

    Shared aroma: isobutyraldehyde (malty, green).

  3. Butter + lemontop 16% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together41,227 recipes

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

  4. Lemon + flourtop 17% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together30,404 recipes

    Shared aroma: isobutyraldehyde (malty, green).

  5. Butter + eggtop 17% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together118,967 recipes

    Shared aroma: decanal (soap, orange peel).

Butter and flour 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

Butter
Adds richness and a smooth, rounded mouthfeel to the sauce.
Egg yolks
Thicken the sauce as they heat and bind the butter and liquids together.
Vinegar
Adds sharp acidity that balances the richness of the butter and yolks.
Lemon juice
Adds bright acidity and fresh flavour at the end of cooking.

The step that matters

Keep the heat low and do not let the sauce boil. Egg yolks thicken at gentle heat but scramble when overheated. Boiling makes the proteins tighten and separate, so the sauce curdles. Steady, low heat with constant stirring keeps it smooth.

Swap the lemon

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

  1. Raisinfits better
  2. Figfits about as well
  3. Vanillafits about as well
  4. Lemonthe original

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