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Sauce

Dutch Sauce

A sauce made with elder vinegar, white sauce, egg yolks, and horseradish.

From an old cookbook · modernised transcription
From a historical cookbook (Internet Archive) · 4 ingredients
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Dutch Sauce

Why it works: Vinegar and horseradish are a kitchen classic. They rank in the top 12% of all ingredient pairs, and cooks put them together in 2,609 recipes. Both carry isobutyraldehyde, which smells malty, green. The science ↓

Dutch Sauce

Ingredients

Directions

Make the sauce

  1. Scrape some horseradish and boil it in elder vinegar.

  2. Add the white sauce and egg yolks to the mixture.

  3. Pass the sauce through a fine sieve.

Serve

  1. Keep the sauce warm in a bain-marie until ready to serve.

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. Vinegar + horseradishtop 12% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together2,609 recipes

    Shared aroma: isobutyraldehyde (malty, green).

  2. Sauce + horseradishtop 12% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together775 recipes

    Shared aroma: ethanol (alcoholic, ethereal).

  3. Vinegar + saucetop 26% of all pairs
    Smell alikelow
    Cooked together3,844 recipes

    Shared aroma: ethanol (alcoholic, ethereal).

  4. Egg + horseradishtop 26% of all pairs
    Smell alikelow
    Cooked together694 recipes

    Shared aroma: 2-methylbutyraldehyde (malty, chocolate).

  5. Vinegar + eggtop 33% of all pairs
    Smell alikelow
    Cooked together12,922 recipes

    Shared aroma: acetic acid (sour, vinegar).

Vinegar and egg barely smell alike, yet cooks put them together in 12,922 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.
White sauce
Provides the creamy base that carries the flavour of the sauce.
Elder vinegar
Adds sharp acidity that balances the richness and sharpens the horseradish.
Horseradish
Supplies the pungent, sharp flavour that defines the sauce.

The step that matters

Keep the sauce warm in a bain-marie. Egg yolks scramble if overheated, so gentle indirect heat keeps the sauce smooth and thick until serving.

Swap the horseradish

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

  1. Mustardfits about as well
  2. Horseradishthe original
  3. Shallotfits about as well
  4. Capsicumfits about as well

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