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Hot Mayonnaise
Yolks 2 eggs 2 tablespoons olive oil 1 tablespoon vinegar 1/4 cup hot water Salt Few grains cayenne 1 teaspoon finely chopped parsley Add oil slowly to egg yolks, then pour on gradually vinegar and water. Cook over boiling water until mixture thickens, then add seasonings and parsley.
A warm egg-yolk sauce built like a mayonnaise but finished over water, closer to what we would now call a hollandaise or sauce mousseline. The whole dish hinges on gentle, constant heat.
- The critical stepSet the bowl over simmering water, not water at a hard boil, and whisk without stopping. Yolks begin to set around 150F and scramble past about 180F, so the sauce should thicken to a coating consistency and come off the heat immediately.
- "Cook over boiling water"This means a double boiler or a heatproof bowl over a pan of water, with the bowl not touching the water. Set directly over the flame the yolks are likely to curdle.
- Two tablespoons of oil is correctThis is not a cold mayonnaise with cups of oil. The yolks and the hot water do the thickening, so resist adding more oil, which risks breaking the sauce.
- "Few grains cayenne"A pinch, roughly an eighth of a teaspoon or less. Cayenne in these small quantities is a routine seasoning in cookbooks of the period.
- VinegarPlain white wine or cider vinegar suits it. Malt vinegar is too assertive for the quantity of oil here; lemon juice can stand in if you prefer a rounder acidity.
- If it breaksPull the bowl off the heat at the first sign of graininess and whisk in a tablespoon of cold water. Once the yolks have visibly scrambled the sauce cannot be recovered.
- Yield and servingAbout half a cup, enough for two to four portions of poached or baked fish, boiled chicken, or asparagus. Serve within a few minutes of making; it will not hold warm and will not reheat.
In late nineteenth- and early twentieth-century American cookery the word "mayonnaise" covered a wider family of egg-and-oil sauces than it does now. Structurally this is a yolk emulsion set by heat rather than by volume of oil, which puts it close to hollandaise.