Hollandaise Sauce and Eggs Benedict

Hollandaise: A velvety smooth sauce of French origin made using egg yolks, butter, lemon juice and vinegar, usually served with asparagus or in eggs Benedict. When I think of Hollandaise, honestly, I think of the 80’s; jelly molds, layered salads, Delia Smith and Hollandaise sauce. Look, don’t get me wrong, Hollandaise is great and unlike the other 3 it actually survived the 80’s and is still celebrated today-it’s one of the greats; like castle it’s stood the test of time and come out tops.

The wonderful people at Spatula Magazine sent me the challenge of  testing out various methods of making this luxurious sauce to create the perfect recipe and I just couldn't resist... (take a look at their article here)

The first recorded writings about the sauce date back to the 17^th Century when sauces were still used to disguise rather than enhance the flavour of the food. (No refrigeration meant that meat and fish were mostly on the rarer side of rancid.) Historians believe it was originally called ‘Sauce Isigny’ after a town in Normandy best-known for its butter, but during World War I butter production stopped altogether in France and it had to be imported from Holland – thus the name was changed to ‘Hollandaise’ and was never changed back.

Why is it so good? Well as Julia Child put it: with enough butter anything tastes good – mix with that some rich egg yolks and you got the stuff that heart attacks are made of – yes delicious, decadent and worth every extra inch on my hips for those glorious long seconds it will spend on your lips.

So – now I have your attention – how does one make the perfect Hollandaise?

There are 2 schools of thought; the traditional and fail-safe. The traditional requires you to use a double boiler; you slowly warm the egg yolks through with a little water until they begin to thicken, then add the butter, little at a time so as not to split the mixture before finally adding the lemon juice and vinegar, whilst continually whisking throughout. The blender version requires much less effort but still requires your utmost concentration.

I am going to give you a recipe that will work for both with a few different tweaks to each method. The blender version is less likely to go wrong so for anyone who lacks kitchen-confidence, this is the one fore you:

Hollandaise Sauce:

Ingredients:

• 2 large eggs yolks 
• dash of salt and pepper
• 2 tbs hot water
• 1 tbs white wine vinegar
• 1 tbs lemon juice
• 100g butter 

Method 1 (Traditional):

• Put egg yolks into a metal/glass bowl with salt and pepper, melt the butter and mix the lemon juice with the vinegar.

• Fill a pot a 1/3 of the way up with hot water and place on a medium heat. Place the bowl with eggs on top of this to form a double-boiler/Bain Marie (The water must not touch the bottom of the bowl - the steam from the water will heat the eggs, but if the water touches the bowl or boils at a high heat - the eggs will scramble.)
• Add the 2 tbs hot water to the eggs and whisk rapidly for approx 1 min, then add the lemon/vinegar mix and whisk for 3 minutes until it begins to thicken.

•  Melt the butter in the microwave and add to the sauce 1 tbs at a time, whisking all the while until you have a thick and velvety Hollandaise. Turn of the heat and add some cold water to the double-boiler to cool the temperature down (It should be warm but not hot to stop the sauce from cooking further) then either serve immediately or you can let it stand for up to 15 min. (If you let in stand you will probably have to add 1 more tbs hot water just before serving to loosen it as it will have thickened further.

Method 2 (Blender):

• Put the egg yolks in a blender with salt and pepper.
• Heat up the vinegar/lemon juice mix in the microwave and add the 2tbs hot water.
• Turn the blender on and slowly drizzle the lemon mixture through the whole in the lid, keep the blender going for 3 minutes.
• Heat butter until it's bubbling. (All the added ingredients must be very hot in order to cook and thicken the eggs.)
• With the blender on again, slowly drizzle the butter through the whole in the lid in the same fashion as you did the lemon mixture, little at a time, with patience. (About 3 more minutes.)
• Keep the blender going for a further minute to thicken the Hollandaise before serving straight away or within 5 minutes of finishing the sauce as there is no way of re-heating it.

Now what better way to enjoy the Hollandaise than with...

Eggs Benedict

Ingredients: (serves 2-4)

• 1 packet streaky bacon
• 2 English muffins
• 4 large free-range eggs
• Hollandaise sauce
• Chives to garnish

Method:

• Preheat the oven on 200*C
• Pop the bacon in a oven-tray and put in to bake for 15-20 min (to your liking of crispness/limpness)

• Keep the bacon warm and make the hollandaise sauce the traditional way before poaching the eggs or if you are doing the hollandaise in the blender, poach the eggs first. To poach eggs traditionally in a pot of water without any poacher attachemnts: put a pot of water on the heat and bring up to a simmer, add 2-3 tbs of vinegar before cracking in the eggs and allow them to simmer for 3-4 minutes (The vinegar stops the eggs from separating). 
• While they poach, cut the English muffins in half and toast them.
• Remove eggs from the heat and if poaching traditionally dry on paper towel:

• Before assembling like so:

Enjoy! And before you think twice about this indulgence, remember the wise words of Julia Child:
"Is there anything better than butter? Think it over, any time you taste something that's delicious beyond imagining and you say 'what's in this?' the answer is always going to be butter. The day there is a meteorite rushing toward Earth and we have thirty days to live, I am going to spend it eating butter. Here is my final word on the subject, you can never have too much butter."