Holland Sauce

Hollandaise sauce is simply an emulsion of butter in egg yolks.  It requires a little bit of practice to avoid curdling the eggs and causing the sauce to break.  Use it over asparagus or to make eggs benedict.
  • 4 egg yolks at room temperature
  • 2 tablespoons water
  • 8 ounces unsalted butter, melted
  • 1 Tbs. lemmon juice

Put about an inch of water in a sauce pan and bring it to a simmer.

Beat the egg yolks and water until frothy in a stainless steel mixing bowl.  Place the bowl into the sauce pan of simmering water to create a double boiler.  Be sure to use a bowl of sufficient size so that the water doesn’t touch the bottom of the bowl.  Stir the eggs constantly until they just begin to thicken.  If they look like they are cooking too fast, plunge the bowl into cold water to stop the cooking and then continue.

Very slowly (drop by drop to start) beat the melted butter into the eggs.  When the sauce has thickened, beat in the lemon juice.  Serve at once, or keep up to 30 minutes by placing the bowl in tepid water.

If the sauce breaks, you can start over with another egg yolk in a new bowl.  Simply use the broken mixture as if it were butter and beat it slowly into the egg yolk.

Simple Blender Hollandaise

You can avoid the problem of broken sauce by making the sauce in a blender.  Omit the water and blend the egg yolks and lemon juice.  With the blender running, slowly pour in the warm melted butter.

Blender Hollandaise sauce has a slightly different texture but it is easy and good.