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Sauce

Hollandaise Sauce

A creamy sauce made from butter, egg yolks, lemon juice, salt, cayenne, and boiling water.

From an old cookbook · modernised transcription
From a historical cookbook (Internet Archive) · 6 ingredients
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Why it works: Butter and lemon are a kitchen classic. They rank in the top 16% of all ingredient pairs, and 41,227 recipes mention both. Both carry 3-hexenal, which smells apple, fruity. The science ↓

Hollandaise Sauce

Ingredients

Directions

Prepare the base

  1. Beat the butter until creamy.

  2. Mix in the egg yolks and lemon juice.

  3. Add the salt and cayenne.

Cook the sauce

  1. Place the mixture in a double boiler and heat for 2 minutes.

  2. Stir in the boiling water and cook for 5 minutes, stirring constantly.

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 aroma chemistry they share, and how many recipes mention both.

  1. Butter + lemontop 16% of all pairs
    Aroma overlapmoderate
    Mentioned together41,227 recipes

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

  2. Butter + eggtop 17% of all pairs
    Aroma overlapmoderate
    Mentioned together118,967 recipes

    Shared aroma: decanal (soap, orange peel).

  3. Egg + lemontop 19% of all pairs
    Aroma overlaplow
    Mentioned together44,316 recipes

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

Egg and lemon share little aroma chemistry, yet 44,316 recipes mention both: they likely 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
Lecithin in the yolks emulsifies the butter and thickens the sauce as it gently cooks.
Butter
Milk fat adds richness and a smooth, silky mouthfeel.
Lemon juice
Acidity brightens the flavor and cuts through the richness of the butter and yolks.

The step that matters

Keeping the heat gentle while cooking. Egg yolks thicken as they warm, but if they get too hot they scramble and curdle. Gentle heat over a double boiler, with constant stirring, keeps the sauce smooth.

Flavor stand-ins for the lemon

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

  1. Lemonthe original
  2. Vanillaabout as good a flavor fit
  3. Coconutabout as good a flavor fit

Fit is the average pairing score against butter, egg. Candidates are from the same food group and used in at least 100 recipes. This compares flavor only: it does not check the job the ingredient does in the dish (bulk, moisture, acidity, structure).

“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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