Hollandaise Sauce

Famously good with poached eggs, this butter sauce is equally delicious with steamed asparagus or other green vegetables. It's also wonderful with almost any seafood.

It waits for no one, however, and it cannot really be reheated.

The key to this famous (and famously fragile) butter sauce is close attention and careful control of the heat. The sauce can always be cooked more, but it can’t be uncooked –if you scramble the egg yolks, you pretty much have to start over.

Ingredients #

Instructions #

A large bowl filled with ice water (to quickly cool the pan, if necessary)

In a heavy medium or small saucepan, beat the egg yolks for about a minute or until they thicken and lighten slightly. Add the cold water and lemon juice, and beat for 30 more seconds.

Add 1 tbsp. cold butter (but do not mix it in) and place the pan over very low heat (or over a pot of simmering water) and stir the yolks continuously with the wire whisk until they thicken into a smooth cream. This will take 1 to 2 minutes, but if they seem to be thickening too quickly or show the slightest sign of lumpiness, immediately submerge the bottom of the pan in your bowl of ice water and beat the yolks vigorously to cool them before returning to the heat.

When you start to see the bottom of the pan between strokes of the whisk, the yolks have thickened sufficiently. Remove the pan from the heat and stir in the remaining tbsp. cold butter to cool the mixture and stop the cooking.

Beating the yolks continuously with the whisk, begin adding the melted butter in small dribbles, beating until each addition is incorporated before adding more. Once the mixture becomes a thick cream, you can add the butter a bit faster. Don’t add the white, watery residue that settles to the bottom of the melted butter.

Season the sauce to taste with salt, white pepper, lemon juice, and drops of Tabasco sauce or a sprinkle of cayenne.

Hollandaise doesn’t hold very well, it will become unpleasantly greasy if allowed to get cold. You can hold it for a bit over hot (as in just barely at the edge of simmering) water, but serve it immediately if you can.

If you’re making the sauce for asparagus, I recommend adding a bit more lemon juice and the grated zest from the lemon.