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Hollandaise-Venitienne Sauce
Place in a small saucepan three-quarters gill good vinegar, one light tablespoon lemon juice, half teaspoon fresh, crushed whole white pepper, a branch parsley, branch chervil and fresh mint leaf. Set pan on fire to reduce to one-third, mixing once in a while. Strain juice through a cheesecloth into another very small saucepan, add one egg yolk and sharply whisk on corner of range for five minutes. Gradually pour, drop by drop, three-quarters gill good hot melted butter, continually whisking while adding, remove pan to table, season with two saltspoons salt and whisk for three minutes longer, so as to make it frothy, then strain through a cheesecloth and use as directed.
This is a hollandaise built on a herb-and-vinegar reduction rather than plain lemon — a small, sharp sauce meant for poached fish or eggs. The quantities are tiny, and the hinge is heat control.
- A gillA gill is half a cup, so three-quarters gill is 6 tablespoons (3 fl oz). Both the vinegar and the melted butter are measured out in the same quantity, though the vinegar is then reduced to a third of its volume.
- SaltspoonA saltspoon is a quarter teaspoon. Two saltspoons is half a teaspoon of salt, which is a good deal for a sauce this size — add half, taste, then finish.
- "Corner of range"On a coal range the corner was the coolest spot. Translate it as a bowl over barely steaming water, or a heavy pan over the lowest possible flame, moved off the heat whenever the yolk starts to tighten. Above roughly 180F the yolk scrambles and the sauce is lost.
- The reductionSix tablespoons of vinegar with lemon juice reduced to one-third leaves about 2 tablespoons of intensely sour, herb-scented liquid. Watch it near the end; a small pan can go from a third to dry in under a minute, and a scorched reduction cannot be rescued.
- White pepper, crushed wholeWhole white peppercorns cracked coarsely, not ground -- they infuse the reduction and are strained out. Pre-ground white pepper is likelier to pass the cloth and can taste musty.
- ChervilRarely stocked fresh. A sprig of tarragon plus a little extra parsley gives the closest anise-and-grass note; dried chervil contributes nothing here.
- Butter temperature"Hot melted butter" means warm and liquid, around 120-130F, not sizzling. Butter poured in near boiling will cook the yolk on contact. Adding it drop by drop at the start is not optional — the emulsion is built on a single yolk and has little margin.
- The final strainingPassing the finished sauce through cheesecloth removes any thread of cooked yolk and gives the smooth texture the recipe is after. Do it while the sauce is warm; it will not pass through once it cools and sets.
- Yield and holdingAbout half a cup — enough for two to four portions of poached fish or eggs. Hold it no more than half an hour in a warm (not hot) spot; it will break if reheated and cannot be refrigerated and revived.
Sauce vénitienne in the classical French repertoire is usually a velouté-based sauce finished with a tarragon-and-chervil vinegar reduction and green herb butter, and Escoffier lists it among the white sauce derivatives. What Filippini gives here is the hollandaise cousin of that idea: the herb vinegar reduction stands in for the plain lemon of a straight hollandaise, so the sauce reads as Venetian in flavour while remaining an egg-and-butter emulsion. The International Cook Book, drawn from the kitchen experience of a Delmonico's man, is full of these hyphenated hybrids, each distinguished from the next by a single aromatic. The mint leaf is the unusual touch.