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Sauce Hollandaise

A rich, emulsified sauce made from egg yolks, butter, vinegar, lemon juice, pepper, salt, and nutmeg.

From an old cookbook · modernised transcription
From a historical cookbook (Internet Archive) · 8 ingredients
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Why it works: Lemon and nutmeg match in chemistry and in kitchens. They rank in the top 5% of all ingredient pairs, and cooks put them together in 11,318 recipes. Both carry beta-phellandrene, which smells minty, terpene. The science ↓

Sauce Hollandaise

Ingredients

Directions

Prepare

  1. Boil the vinegar with the peppercorns until reduced by half.

  2. Strain and set aside to cool.

Make the sauce

  1. In a saucepan, mix half of the butter cut into small pieces, the egg yolks, salt, nutmeg, and the cooled vinegar.

  2. Set the saucepan over boiling water and stir continuously with a wooden spoon until smooth.

  3. Strain the mixture into another saucepan and return it to the boiling water, beating steadily.

  4. Gradually add the remaining butter in small pieces and the Velouté.

  5. When the sauce is light and frothy, remove from heat, squeeze in a little lemon juice, and serve immediately with fish.

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 + nutmegtop 5% of all pairs
    Smell alikestrong
    Cooked together11,318 recipes

    Shared aroma: beta-phellandrene (minty, terpene).

  2. Butter + saucetop 15% of all pairs
    Smell alikelow
    Cooked together15,338 recipes

    Shared aroma: ethanol (alcoholic, ethereal).

  3. Nutmeg + buttertop 16% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together24,377 recipes

    Shared aroma: eucalyptol (eucalyptus, herbal).

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

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

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

    Shared aroma: decanal (soap, orange peel).

Butter and sauce barely smell alike, yet cooks put them together in 15,338 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
Emulsify with the butter and thicken the sauce as they cook gently over heat.
Butter
Adds richness and fat that gives the sauce its smooth, silky body.
Vinegar
Adds acidity that sharpens the flavour and helps stabilise the emulsion.
Velouté
Adds body and stability to the sauce, helping it hold together.

The step that matters

Keeping the heat gentle while whisking the yolks. Egg yolks thicken at moderate temperatures but scramble if overheated. Stirring over boiling water and beating steadily keeps the sauce smooth, while butter added slowly lets the emulsion form without curdling.

Swap the lemon

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

  1. Lemonthe original
  2. Figfits about as well
  3. Coconutfits less well
  4. Raisinfits less well

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