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Sauce

Hollandaise Sauce

A creamy sauce made from egg yolks, butter, vinegar, and water, seasoned with salt and pepper.

From an old cookbook · modernised transcription
From a historical cookbook (Internet Archive) · 6 ingredients
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Why it works: Vinegar and pepper are a kitchen classic. They rank in the top 14% of all ingredient pairs, and 27,814 recipes mention both. Both carry 4'-methylacetophenone, which smells bitter almond. The science ↓

Hollandaise Sauce

Ingredients

Directions

Reduce the vinegar

  1. Boil the vinegar and water together for 2 to 3 minutes.

  2. Season with salt and pepper.

Emulsify the sauce

  1. Add half the butter.

  2. Pour the mixture onto the well-beaten egg yolks in a small jar.

  3. Set the jar in a pan of boiling water.

  4. Stir until the sauce begins to thicken.

Finish

  1. Remove from heat.

  2. Add the remaining butter.

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. Vinegar + peppertop 14% of all pairs
    Aroma overlapmoderate
    Mentioned together27,814 recipes

    Shared aroma: 4'-methylacetophenone (bitter almond).

  2. Egg + buttertop 17% of all pairs
    Aroma overlapmoderate
    Mentioned together118,967 recipes

    Shared aroma: decanal (soap, orange peel).

  3. Butter + peppertop 21% of all pairs
    Aroma overlapmoderate
    Mentioned together85,593 recipes

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

  4. Vinegar + buttertop 23% of all pairs
    Aroma overlapmoderate
    Mentioned together13,513 recipes

    Shared aroma: isoamyl acetate (banana, pear).

  5. Egg + vinegartop 33% of all pairs
    Aroma overlaplow
    Mentioned together12,922 recipes

    Shared aroma: acetic acid (sour, vinegar).

Egg and vinegar share little aroma chemistry, yet 12,922 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

Egg yolks
Emulsify the butter and thicken the sauce as their proteins set with gentle heat.
Butter
Adds fat that gives the sauce richness, body and a smooth, glossy texture.
Vinegar
Adds acidity that balances the richness of the butter and helps stabilize the emulsion.

The step that matters

Stir the yolks over gentle heat until the sauce begins to thicken. Egg yolk proteins thicken the sauce at low temperatures, but too much heat scrambles them into curds. Keeping the jar in a pan of hot water, not on direct heat, and stirring steadily lets the sauce thicken smoothly before the butter is added off the heat.

“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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