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Sauce Hollandaise
1/2 cup butter Yolks of 2 eggs 8/4 tablespoon lemon juice 1/3 cup boiling water 1/4 teaspoon salt Few grains cayenne Add yolks of eggs, lemon juice and seasonings to one-third of the butter; place in a sauce-pan over boiling water and stir constantly till butter is melted. As it thickens add the rest of the butter, a bit at a time, add the water and cook one minute.
A classic double-boiler hollandaise, built by the old method of dividing the butter into thirds rather than whisking a finished emulsion. It works, but the margin between thickened and scrambled is narrow.
- The hinge: gentle heat"Over boiling water" means a bowl or pan set above simmering water, never touching it, and never over direct flame. If the yolks pass roughly 180F they will scramble; pull the pan off the heat whenever the sauce feels close and keep stirring.
- Butter in thirdsOne-third of the butter (about 2 2/3 tablespoons) goes in with the yolks, acid and seasoning; the remainder is added in small pieces as the mixture thickens. Adding the butter piecemeal helps keep the temperature down and the emulsion stable.
- Lemon juiceThe quantity as printed is unclear. Three-quarters of a tablespoon, a little over two teaspoons, is the proportion that suits half a cup of butter and two yolks; adjust at the end to taste.
- The boiling waterThe 1/3 cup of boiling water added near the end is not a mistake. It thins the sauce to pouring consistency and stabilises it slightly. Add it hot, as the recipe directs, then cook the sauce one minute more.
- EggsThe yolks are cooked, but only just, and the finished sauce sits well short of a rolling temperature. Anyone serving young children, elderly guests or pregnant women should use pasteurised yolks.
- If it splitsA broken sauce can usually be brought back: whisk a fresh yolk with a teaspoon of hot water in a clean bowl, then dribble the curdled mixture into it. A tablespoon of boiling water whisked in hard sometimes suffices.
- Yield and holdingMakes about a cup, enough for four servings of poached fish or asparagus. Hollandaise does not reheat; hold it lukewarm in a covered bowl for at most half an hour and do not refrigerate and revive it.
Hollandaise is one of the French mother sauces, though its name points to the Netherlands rather than France; the connection is often explained by reference to Dutch butter, long praised in French kitchens, but the derivation is traditional rather than documented. Sauces of egg yolk, butter and acid appear in French cookery well before the name settled, and by the late nineteenth century hollandaise was a common dressing for poached salmon, turbot and asparagus in American as well as European kitchens.