Sauce Hollandaise.

Finally! We already had the Beet Beurre Blanc and Orange Beurre Blanc but now we’re coming to a real treat. The mother of all butter sauces. I’m still drooling over my laptop, when I even think about it. It enhances the flavour of almost everything you put it on. White asparagus (grown without any exposure to light) is the best known example, at least here in Germany. I love to put in on eggs benedict, salmon or even pizza (yes, you heard me right!).

Sauce Hollandaise doesn’t come from the Netherlands, as the name implies. It’s a classic french sauce and only called hollandaise because for some time during World War I, butter was only available imported from the Netherlands and Belgium. Before that, it was called Sauce Isigny, after the town of Isigny-sur-Mer, former butter-capital of France.

Well, anyway, the important thing when making hollandaise is stirring and not getting the stuff too hot, as the egg protein denaturates and messes up the beautiful emulsion. If however you break your hollandaise, you can start over with new eggs and add the broken hollandaise sauce just like you usually add just the butter.

It’s quite likely, that you mess up hollandaise the first times you try it – at least that’s what happened to me – but you should definitely not give up. Seriously, it’s worth it!

Ingredients

2 sticks of butter (230g)

4 egg yolks

2 tbsp. of white wine vinegar

3 tbsp. of lemon juice

salt

Melt the butter in a small pot over medium-low heat. Assemble a bain-marie and mix egg yolks, white wine vinegar and lemon juice in the inner container. While continuously stirring put bain-marie on medium heat and when starting to warm begin to add butter in very small amounts. Don’t you dare to stop stirring! When all butter is added continue stirring until sauce has thickened considerably. Season with salt and (if needed) some more lemon juice and serve immediately.