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Hollandaise Sauce
Place in a small enamelled pan one light tablespoon freshly crushed whole white pepper, add four tablespoons good vinegar (tarragon vinegar is the best), one good teaspoon fresh lemon juice, four leaves thoroughly washed and drained parsley and four leaves well-washed and drained chervil. Set the pan on the corner of the range and let slowly reduce to one-half the quantity, gently mixing once in a while. Then press it through a cheesecloth into a bowl, crack in one fresh egg yolk, sharply mix with a whisk for one minute; then carefully drop in drop by drop one gill hot melted (good) butter, briskly and continually mixing with the whisk while adding it. Season with two saltspoons salt and half saltspoon cayenne pepper, briskly whisk for one minute longer. Press through a cloth into a saucebowl and serve.
This is hollandaise built the older way, on a vinegar-and-herb reduction rather than lemon juice alone, and it is closer to a béarnaise in construction. The whole thing hinges on temperature: the reduction, the yolk and the butter all have to be warm but never hot enough to scramble.
- The hinge: heat controlNothing here should exceed about 150F/65C once the yolk goes in. The recipe relies on the residual warmth of the reduction and the hot butter to thicken the sauce; if the bowl is over direct heat or the butter is near boiling, the yolk sets into curds. A bowl set over (not in) barely steaming water gives the control the original cook got from "the corner of the range."
- MeasuresA gill is half a cup, 4 fl oz — about 115 g of butter, which is a generous ratio for a single yolk. A saltspoon is a quarter teaspoon, so the seasoning works out to roughly 1/2 tsp salt and a scant 1/8 tsp cayenne.
- "Corner of the range"On a coal range the corner was the coolest spot, used for long slow reductions. On a modern burner this means the lowest setting, and the reduction of about four tablespoons of liquid down to half will take only a few minutes — watch it, since it can go dry fast.
- Enamelled panThe instruction is not decorative. Vinegar in bare cast iron, aluminium or unlined copper picks up metallic flavour and grey colour. Use stainless, enamel or glass.
- White peppercornsA "light tablespoon" of crushed whole white pepper sounds violent but it is all strained out; it perfumes the vinegar rather than seasoning the sauce. White is specified so no black flecks survive into a pale sauce.
- ChervilFresh chervil is seasonal and rarely stocked. Four leaves contribute very little; a small sprig of tarragon, or simply more parsley, is a reasonable stand-in, and tarragon vinegar already carries the anise note.
- Butter, clarified or not"Hot melted butter" added drop by drop works best clarified — the milk solids and water in whole melted butter thin the emulsion and make it likelier to split. Add it very slowly at the start; once the sauce has taken, the stream can widen.
- Raw yolkThe yolk is never brought to a temperature that pasteurises it. For anyone pregnant, elderly, very young or immunocompromised, use pasteurised yolks, which behave much the same in an emulsion.
- Yield and holdingAbout two-thirds to three-quarters of a cup — enough for four modest servings with fish, asparagus or eggs. Hollandaise does not keep or reheat; make it within the half hour before serving and hold it barely warm, around 130F, in a covered bowl.
Hollandaise means "in the Dutch style," and the name is generally traced to a butter-and-egg sauce associated with the Low Countries, where butter was abundant; the sauce as French cooks codified it in the nineteenth century has little to do with Dutch cooking beyond the name. The version here, with its reduction of tarragon vinegar, crushed white pepper and herbs strained out before the yolk goes in, shows the older restaurant practice in which hollandaise and béarnaise were near neighbours. The double straining — once after the reduction, once before serving — and the direction to build the emulsion drop by drop belong to a period when a cook was expected to hold an emulsion by hand with a whisk and nothing else.