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Sauce

Melted Butter

A sauce made by whisking egg yolks with melted butter, lemon juice or vinegar, and water, heated gently to avoid curdling.

From an old cookbook · modernised transcription
From a historical cookbook (Internet Archive) · 4 ingredients
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Melted Butter

Why it works: Butter and lemon 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 ↓

Melted Butter

Ingredients

Directions

Make the sauce

  1. Combine the well-beaten yolks of 2 or 3 eggs with ½ cup of melted butter in a bowl, stirring briskly as you add the butter.

  2. Transfer the mixture back to a saucepan and heat gently, ensuring it does not boil to prevent curdling.

  3. Add 1 tablespoon of lemon juice or vinegar and serve immediately.

Flourless version

  1. For a flourless version, boil 3 tablespoons of water in a small saucepan, then add 4 ounces of fresh butter.

  2. Remove from heat and shake the saucepan until the sauce is thick and smooth, ensuring it does not boil after adding the butter.

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. Butter + lemontop 16% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together41,227 recipes

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

  2. Butter + eggtop 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).

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
Emulsify the butter and thicken the sauce as they gently set with heat.
Melted butter
Provides fat and rich flavour, and forms the body of the emulsion with the yolks.
Lemon juice or vinegar
Adds acidity that brightens the rich butter and balances its flavour.

The step that matters

Keep the sauce below boiling. Egg yolks begin to set around 65°C and curdle if overheated, so the sauce turns grainy and separates. Gentle heat keeps it smooth and thick.

Swap the lemon

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

  1. Lemonthe original
  2. Vanillafits about as well
  3. Coconutfits about as well
  4. Raspberryfits less well

Fit is the average pairing score against butter, 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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