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Hollandaise Sauce
Beat well the yolks of three eggs, add one-half of a teaspoonful of salt, one-quarter of a teaspoonful of white pepper and three tablespoonfuls of butter; cut into bits. Stand over hot water on a moderate fire and stir until the butter begins to melt. Add the strained juice of half of a lemon and continue stirring until the mixture thickens, lifting occasionally that it may not thicken too fast. When like thick cream, take from the fire and serve.
A lean, old-style hollandaise built in a double boiler rather than whisked over direct heat. The whole thing turns on temperature control, so read the first two points before starting.
- The hinge: keep the water below a simmerThe hinge: keep the water hot but below a boil - that is all "hot water on a moderate fire" tells you. Yolks begin to thicken from around 150F and are set by roughly 160F; much past that they scramble and the sauce breaks.
- "Lifting occasionally"This means lifting the upper pan clear of the water for a few seconds while you keep whisking, which is how you dump heat fast. It is the period equivalent of pulling a pan off the burner, and it is the main defence against curdling.
- Butter ratio is low by modern standardsThree tablespoons of butter to three yolks, about one tablespoon per yolk. Modern recipes generally run to roughly two to four tablespoons of butter per yolk, so expect something thinner and eggier than the hollandaise you may be used to.
- YieldRoughly a scant half cup, enough to sauce three or four modest servings. It does not keep.
- Butter cut into bitsThe small pieces melt gradually and evenly rather than flooding the warm yolks with fat all at once. Note that the recipe adds them all together and does not specify cold butter.
- If it separatesTake it off the heat immediately and whisk in a tablespoon of cold water or a fresh yolk in a clean warm bowl, adding the broken sauce a spoonful at a time.
- Holding and eggsServe within about half an hour, kept barely warm; it cannot be reheated. Because the yolks only reach the setting point, use pasteurized eggs if serving anyone pregnant, elderly, very young or immunocompromised.
- White pepperUsually explained as a matter of appearance, since black pepper leaves visible flecks in a pale sauce. Ground white pepper stales quickly, so use a reasonably fresh tin.
Hollandaise means simply "Dutch sauce," and English cookbooks printed it under that name in the nineteenth century; the Dutch association is traditional rather than documented, and is usually explained by the Netherlands' reputation as a butter-exporting country. Escoffier's codification later listed hollandaise among the leading French sauces, and American household manuals commonly reproduced it in simplified double-boiler form.