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Sauce Hollandaise
2 egg yolks 3/4 tablespoon lemon juice 1/4 teaspoon salt Few grains cayenne 1/2 cup shortening 1/3 cup boiling water Add yolks of eggs, lemon juice and seasonings to one-third of the shortening; place in a saucepan over boiling water and stir constantly until shortening is melted. As it thickens, add the rest of the shortening, a bit at a time, then the water, and cook one minute.
A depression-era hollandaise built on vegetable shortening rather than butter, cooked custard-fashion over boiling water. The method is sound; the fat is the part a modern cook will want to reconsider.
- The hinge: gentle, indirect heatThe saucepan sits over boiling water, never in direct contact with the burner. If the yolks see direct heat they scramble; a curdled sauce is difficult to bring back, and easier to prevent than to fix.
- Shortening versus butter"Shortening" here most likely means a solid vegetable fat, though in older books the word can cover any solid cooking fat. Half a cup of unsalted butter gives the flavour a hollandaise is normally wanted for; the technique is unchanged.
- That 3/4 tablespoonAwkward as written: it is 2 1/4 teaspoons, roughly the juice of half a small lemon. Add most of it at the start and hold a little back to adjust at the end.
- Add the fat in stagesOne-third goes in with the yolks so the eggs warm slowly; the rest goes in a small piece at a time only as the sauce thickens. Adding it all at once makes the emulsion much harder to hold.
- The boiling water is structuralThe third of a cup of boiling water does more than thin the sauce; it also brings heat to the yolks. Add it stirring, at the end, as the recipe directs.
- "Cook one minute"Take this literally. A minute of stirring after the water goes in is enough to thicken and cook the yolks; longer over heat and the sauce tightens, then separates.
- Cayenne"Few grains" is a scant pinch -- less than 1/16 teaspoon. It is there for warmth behind the lemon, not for detectable heat.
- Yield and holdingAbout a cup, enough for four servings of asparagus, broccoli or poached fish. Hollandaise will not keep or reheat well; make it last and serve it warm, not hot.