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Sauce

Dutch Sauce for Meat, Fowl, or Fish

A quick sauce made from water, vinegar, egg yolks, lemon juice, and butter, suitable for meat, fowl, or fish.

From an old cookbook · modernised transcription
From a historical cookbook (Internet Archive) · 5 ingredients
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Why it works: Lemon and butter are a kitchen classic. They rank in the top 16% of all ingredient pairs, and cooks put them together in 41,227 recipes. Both carry 3-hexenal, which smells apple, fruity. The science ↓

Dutch Sauce for Meat, Fowl, or Fish

Ingredients

Directions

  1. Combine water and vinegar in a saucepan and warm the mixture.

  2. Thicken the sauce with the egg yolks, stirring constantly to avoid boiling.

  3. Squeeze in the lemon juice and strain the sauce through a sieve.

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.

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

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

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

    Shared aroma: decanal (soap, orange peel).

  3. Egg + lemontop 19% of all pairs
    Smell alikelow
    Cooked together44,316 recipes

    Shared aroma: (e,e)-2,4-decadienal (fatty, deep fried).

  4. Vinegar + lemontop 20% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together7,334 recipes

    Shared aroma: acetic acid (sour, vinegar).

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

    Shared aroma: isoamyl acetate (banana, pear).

Egg and lemon barely smell alike, yet cooks put them together in 44,316 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 as their proteins set with gentle heat, giving body and richness.
Vinegar
Adds sharp acidity that balances the richness of the yolks and butter.
Butter
Adds fat for richness and a smooth, glossy texture.
Lemon juice
Adds fresh acidity and brightness to the sauce.

The step that matters

Thicken the sauce with the egg yolks, stirring constantly to avoid boiling.. Egg yolk proteins set at moderate heat but curdle and scramble if the sauce gets too hot. Constant stirring spreads the heat evenly, so the sauce thickens smoothly instead of turning grainy.

Swap the lemon

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

  1. Strawberryfits about as well
  2. Currantfits about as well
  3. Raspberryfits about as well
  4. Lemonthe 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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