Word to Your Mother: Sauces
On Hollandaise & Sauces
French cuisine is known for heavenly sauces and holds many iconic achievements.
One of them?
Mother Sauces.
There’s 5 mother sauces and great clasically-trained chefs learn these sauces backwards-and-forwards as they are the foundation of dozens more variations. Think of mother sauces as the foundation of french cookery and saucing.
Mother Sauces:
In case you wanted to know all (5) here you go:
So how does it work?
Well the (5) sauces above are called “mother” sauces but if you add or switch out an ingredient or two you are left with a different sauce. It’s rooted in the mother sauce, but it is distinctly different.
Example: Hollandaise is a mother sauce and is essentially a white wine reduction, egg yolks, lemon and clarified butter.
Most people are familiar with the breakfast classic “Eggs Benedict”. Poached eggs sit atop halved muffins that have slices of canadian bacon, finished with a hollandaise sauce to cover.
By switching switching the white wine reduction for a red wine-peppercorn reduction, red wine vinegar (instead of lemon) and adding tarragon; we now have the iconic Bearnaise sauce, which lets be honest can eaten happily by itself with a spoon but is greatly enhanced by dousing over a perfectly cooked steak 🥩 🙌
It’s important to note that the same technique is used to make a hollandaise as a bearnaise… hence “mother sauce”
Drop any questions below if you want more discussion on the Mother Sauces; they are near and dear to my heart.
No-Blender Hollandaise
Many people have offloaded hollandaise into blender or food processor tasks.
This can work “fine” but after years and years of making hollandaise every-which-way I’m personally convinced the most stable emulsion is formed by hand whisking.
Part of my thesis on this is that machine blended hollandaise uses blades rotating at hundreds of rpm’s per minute. Look at McGee’s “On Food & Cooking” and you’ll see that over-agitation is one contributing factor in weak or broken emulsions.
I’ve never had a hand whisked hollandaise break or fall apart… never.
This also means you don’t need an $800 blender or processor to make this… just a good balloon whisk does the trick.
Texture
When it comes to this Mother Sauce: Hollandaise isn’t mayonnaise and shouldn’t be thick or gloopy; nor should it be a thin-watery mess.
A perfect hollandaise should glide out of the spoon and leave ribboned trail, enveloping whatever it touches; be it a poached egg or blanched asparagus.
Ingredient Ratio
4oz butter per 1 large yolk
Lemon Juice & Zest (1 whole lemon per 3 egg yolks/12oz butter; zest of half lemon)
White peppercorn
Water (to adjust texture)
Hold warm; will thicken as cools
Method
This method is a slight departure from the traditionalist to make it quick and easy to make at home.
Caveats
Clarified butter is not necessary; warm melted butter is fine.
We are skipping the wine reduction process and using straight lemon juice into the egg yolks.
I like to add some lemon zest at the end when seasoning with the salt and white pepper; I find the aromatics of the zest really lift this quick-version.
Finally, a note for any emulsions. The culinary gods can sense whenever you are nervous making a sauce like this and the result is normally disappointing. Go in with confidence, don’t overthink it and just execute the sauce. I’ve seen so many cooks I was training mess up these sauces. Technique was correct they were just nervous or messed up mentally that was blocking the desired outcome.
With that being said the process is quite simple.
No-Blender Hollandaise for 4-6 people
Start melting 12oz of butter in a small sauce pot over medium heat. Do not allow the butter to brown.
While the butter melts, setup a bain marie (medium glass or metal bowl set over sauce pot with 2inches of simmering water; simmering not boiling)
Add 3 yolks and begin gently whisking the yolks adding the lemon juice and a pinch of salt. Whisk for a few mins until the yolks begin to lighten in color and begin to slightly thicken; don’t need to fully cook at this point, just slightly thickened.
Your butter should be fully melted and slightly hot; turn off the heat under the butter sauce pot.
Using a ladle, or if you’re confidant in your pouring ability pour straight from the butter saucepot, stream the butter slowly into the egg yolks while increasing the speed of your whisking.
When whisking I alternate between a clockwise whisking motion and a zig zag to fully agitate the edges and center equally.
Keep streaming in your butter and you’ll see the egg yolk mixture starting to thicken. Once your emulsion has successfully started it is much harder to break so you can stream in the butter faster. Keep whisking vigorously.
Once all the butter is used, remove the bowl from the simmer water pot and set on a towel or hot pad. The bowl will probably be quite warm so be careful not to burn yourself.
If the hollandaise is quite thick then gradually whisk in some water a few tsp’s at a time, along with the lemon zest and white pepper, until the proper texture is achieved.
Taste the sauce. It should be luscious and coating the spoon, with a blast of lemon and acidity on the back end balancing out all the butter. The white pepper should add a slight picante note but should not be a front-note-flavor.
Add salt if necessary or if you need more acidity add a squeeze more of lemon juice.
Slather or douse over the ingredient of your choosing and enjoy 😋
Once you get this sauce down you will be a literal rock star to your friends and family.
There are so many bad versions of hollandaise out there now that once you have the pure, properly prepared OG hollandaise… it’s life changing. 🙌
Serve over blanched asparagus, steamed broccoli, over eggs, dip french fries, slather over a seared steak or even over crab cakes (thinking right now a passionfruit hollandaise over crab cakes would be delicious 🤤 )
Drop a comment below on your favorite sauces (hollandaise variations or not)
Next up we are talking Omelettes
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See you soon 🤝