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Sauce

Dutch Sauce

A sauce made with egg yolks, flour, cream, salt, lemon vinegar, butter, mace, and white pepper.

From an old cookbook · modernised transcription
From a historical cookbook (Internet Archive) · 8 ingredients
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Dutch Sauce

Why it works: Cream and butter are a kitchen classic. They rank in the top 8% of all ingredient pairs, and cooks put them together in 41,516 recipes. Both carry delta-dodecalactone, which smells sweet, creamy. The science ↓

Dutch Sauce

Ingredients

Directions

  1. Beat the yolks of the eggs in a bowl.

  2. Mix in flour, cream, salt, and lemon vinegar.

  3. Strain the mixture through a sieve.

  4. Add fresh butter, pounded mace, and white pepper.

  5. Put the mixture into a saucepan and stir until almost boiling.

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

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

  2. Mace + white peppertop 9% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together1,695 recipes

    Shared aroma: myrcene (balsamic, herbaceous).

  3. Flour + buttertop 12% of all pairs
    Smell alikelow
    Cooked together124,287 recipes

    Shared aroma: isobutyraldehyde (malty, green).

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

    Shared aroma: isobutyraldehyde (malty, green).

  5. Lemon + buttertop 16% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together41,227 recipes

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

Flour and butter 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

Egg yolks
Thicken the sauce and add richness as they set gently with heat.
Flour
Helps stabilise the sauce and give it body.
Cream
Adds moisture and a smooth, rich texture.
Fresh butter
Adds fat for a glossy finish and silky mouthfeel.
Lemon vinegar
Adds acidity that brightens the richness of the yolks and butter.

The step that matters

Stirring the mixture up to almost boiling. Egg yolks thicken through gentle heat, but if the mixture gets too hot they can scramble and curdle. Stir constantly and heat only until it is almost boiling so the sauce stays smooth.

Swap the mace

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

  1. Tarragonfits better
  2. Nutmegfits better
  3. Parsleyfits better
  4. Macethe original

Fit is the average pairing score against egg, flour, cream, lemon, vinegar, butter, white pepper. 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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