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Another Sauce Hollandaise, More Refined

A refined Hollandaise sauce made with vinegar, egg yolks, butter, salt, and pepper.

From an old cookbook · modernised transcription
From a historical cookbook (Internet Archive) · 6 ingredients
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Why it works: Vinegar and pepper are a kitchen classic. They rank in the top 14% of all ingredient pairs, and cooks put them together in 27,814 recipes. Both carry 4'-methylacetophenone, which smells bitter almond. The science ↓

Another Sauce Hollandaise, More Refined

Ingredients

Directions

Make the sauce

  1. In a small saucepan, combine the vinegar and reduce it by half.

  2. Remove from heat and mix in the beaten egg yolks, salt, and pepper.

  3. Heat gently for 2 minutes, stirring constantly.

  4. Gradually add 1½ ounces of butter while stirring.

  5. Return to heat and continue stirring.

  6. Remove from heat and incorporate 2 ounces of butter gradually, stirring continuously.

  7. Place back over very low heat or in a bowl over boiling water.

  8. After 10 minutes, the sauce will have a creamy consistency.

Serve

  1. Serve immediately.

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. Vinegar + peppertop 14% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together27,814 recipes

    Shared aroma: 4'-methylacetophenone (bitter almond).

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

    Shared aroma: decanal (soap, orange peel).

  3. Pepper + buttertop 21% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together85,593 recipes

    Shared aroma: trans-2-nonenal (cardboard, fatty).

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

    Shared aroma: isoamyl acetate (banana, pear).

  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
Emulsify the butter and thicken the sauce as they set gently with heat.
Butter
Adds fat that makes the sauce rich and smooth once emulsified.
French vinegar
Provides acidity that balances the richness of the butter and yolks.

The step that matters

Keep the heat gentle while adding the butter. Egg yolks scramble if they get too hot, and the sauce can split. Gentle, constant stirring lets the butter emulsify into the yolks and keeps the sauce smooth.

“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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