Name: Dutch Sauce, or Hollandaise Sauce
Ingredients: 2 tablespoons scraped horseradish; 1 sprig thyme; 1 small onion; 2 shallots; ½ cup vinegar; 2 large egg yolks; 2 ounces butter; 2 tablespoons melted butter

Why it works: Horseradish and shallot match in chemistry and in kitchens. They rank in the top 1% of all ingredient pairs, and cooks put them together in 376 recipes. Both carry coumarin, which smells sweet, hay. The science ↓

Dutch Sauce, or Hollandaise Sauce

Ingredients

Directions

Make the infusion

Combine horseradish, thyme, onion, shallots, and vinegar in a stewpan.
Cover and steep the mixture.

Make the sauce

Add egg yolks and butter to another stewpan.
Add the steeped mixture to the egg mixture.
Heat gently while stirring, but do not let it boil.
Strain the sauce through a fine sieve and serve over fish or as desired.

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.

Horseradish + shallottop 1% of all pairs

Smell alikestrong

Cooked together376 recipes

Shared aroma: coumarin (sweet, hay).
Thyme + shallottop 1% of all pairs

Smell alikestrong

Cooked together1,476 recipes

Shared aroma: eucalyptol (eucalyptus, herbal).
Horseradish + oniontop 7% of all pairs

Smell alikestrong

Cooked together1,784 recipes

Shared aroma: coumarin (sweet, hay).
Thyme + oniontop 7% of all pairs

Smell alikemoderate

Cooked together11,171 recipes

Shared aroma: coumarin (sweet, hay).
Horseradish + thymetop 7% of all pairs

Smell alikestrong

Cooked together169 recipes

Shared aroma: coumarin (sweet, hay).

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

What each ingredient does

Egg yolks: Emulsify with the butter and thicken the sauce as they gently cook.
Butter: Adds richness and fat, giving the sauce a smooth, velvety texture.
Vinegar: Adds acidity that sharpens the flavour and balances the rich butter.
Horseradish: Provides a pungent, sharp aroma and heat to the sauce.

The step that matters

Heat gently while stirring, but do not let it boil. Egg yolks thicken at gentle heat but scramble if overheated, and the emulsion can split. Gentle, constant stirring keeps the sauce smooth and glossy.

Swap the onion

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

Mustardfits better
Chivefits better
Beetrootfits better
Onionthe original

Fit is the average pairing score against horseradish, thyme, shallot, 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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Dutch Sauce, or Hollandaise Sauce