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Hollandaise Sauce II
1/2 cup butter 1/2 tablespoon vinegar or 1 tablespoon lemon juice Yolks 2 eggs 1/4 teaspoon salt Few grains cayenne. French Chef Wash butter, divide in three pieces; put one piece in a saucepan with vinegar or lemon juice and egg yolks; place saucepan in a larger one containing boiling water, and stir constantly with a wire whisk. Add second piece of butter, and, as it thickens, third piece. Remove from fire, and add salt and cayenne. If left over fire a moment too long it will separate. If a richer sauce is desired, add one-half teaspoon hot water and one-half tablespoon heavy cream.
A classic three-stage butter emulsion built directly over hot water, with no preliminary sabayon. The whole method hinges on keeping the eggs below the point where they set.
- The hinge: heat controlThe warning in the text is the important line. Keep the water in the lower pan hot but barely moving, lift the upper pan off the heat whenever the mixture feels warm to a fingertip, and never let the egg exceed about 160F. Above roughly 180F the yolk proteins curdle and the sauce breaks.
- "Wash butter"Nineteenth-century butter was often over-salted and carried residual buttermilk, so cooks kneaded it under cold water before use. Modern unsalted butter needs no washing; just cut the half cup into three roughly equal pieces and keep them cold.
- Cold butter, added in stagesButter added in stages -- the recipe says only to wash the butter and divide it in three, but keeping the pieces cool and firm helps hold the mixture's temperature down as each is worked in. Do not melt the butter first and do not add the next piece until the previous one has disappeared into the sauce.
- Double boilerThe "saucepan in a larger one" is a bain-marie. A stainless bowl set over a pan of simmering water is easier to work in, since a round bowl has no corners for the egg to lodge in and scramble.
- MeasurementsHalf a tablespoon of vinegar is about 1 1/2 teaspoons. A mild white wine vinegar or cider vinegar suits the sauce better than sharp distilled white vinegar. "Few grains cayenne" means a pinch, no more than 1/16 teaspoon.
- Rescuing a split sauceIf it separates, whisk a fresh yolk or a tablespoon of hot water in a clean warm bowl and dribble the broken sauce in slowly. The recipe's own finishing trick, hot water and cream, also loosens a sauce that has gone too thick.
- Yield and servingMakes about two-thirds of a cup, enough for four servings of poached fish, asparagus or eggs. Hollandaise will not hold on a burner or reheat; keep it in a warm bowl near the stove and use it within half an hour.
- EggsThe yolks reach only a gentle cooking temperature. If serving anyone pregnant, elderly, very young or immune-compromised, use pasteurized shell eggs.