Making Hollandaise sauce - the easy way
Making hallandaise sauce from scratch can be daunting - there’s the whole double-boiler thing, and the constantly whisking thing, and then there’s the whole bit about adding boiling water a spoon at a time. There is, however, a simpler way to do this.
Dump everything into the same bowl at the same time, whisk as the bowl sits over simmering (not boiling) water until thick. That’s it. Try it yourself - because we’re not adding boiling water, there is no risk of the egg scrambling.
Here are a few additional things to watch out for:
- Use the freshest eggs you can find. If it’s been sitting in the fridge for a week…don’t make hallandaise with it.
- Make sure your bowl sits OVER not IN the simmering water.
- Use a wire whisk and don’t ever ever stop whisking.
- If you’re still failing, try melting the butter in the microwave first. Stick your finger in it to check that it’s not too hot before adding to the eggs.
- Use fresh lemon juice when a recipe calls for vinegar.
September 26th, 2006 at 2:26 pm
You are so talented that it hurts my feelings!
Made the mistake last week of ordering pseudo Eggs Benedict, where they substituted American cheese for Hollandaise sauce. I hate that.
September 27th, 2006 at 11:29 am
Well, you have to admit, cheese is healthier than what’s really just solid cholesterol and butter.
American cheese though. Ew. Did they give you real cheese or that processed stuff?
September 27th, 2006 at 2:51 pm
hi who r u where u from
September 27th, 2006 at 6:57 pm
I think American cheese is that processed stuff by definition.
You know how some poor people suffer from leprosy?
I have a Master’s in Science in Chemical Engineering.
O, the horror.
I could a tale unfold whose lightest word
Would harrow up thy soul, freeze thy young blood,
Make thy two eyes, like stars, start from their spheres,
Thy knotted and combined locks to part
And each particular hair to stand on end,
Like quills upon the fretful porpentine:
But this eternal blazon must not be
To ears of flesh and blood.
September 27th, 2006 at 9:45 pm
Eww. Sounds like stuff I don’t wanna eat. But that $h!+ that sounds like something-I-don’t-wanna-eat makes burgers much better. First it’s maggots, now it’s “stuff that people pass off as cheese.” What’s next?
Eggs Benedict without hollandaise sauce is like sex with a condom: the sauce is one more variable to screw up, and in many cases, too screwed up that the bacon and muffins can’t cover for it. It might not be better, but it’s safer.
September 28th, 2006 at 2:03 am
send ur pic 2 my e mail box ok u are lovely
September 29th, 2006 at 4:03 am
My coinage (to which you are perfectly entitled to freely use) for any such substitution for real poached eggs, Canadian bacon, English muffin and genuine Hollandaise is “Eggs Benedict Arnold.”
Culinary treachery and gastronomic chicanery may be among the lowest form of deception.
I feel cheated whenever I get stuff that only superficially resembles real pizza, real bagels, real Chinese food.
Life’s much too short to put bad stuff into your mouth just to ease one’s belly.
Maybe I spend too much time on the road.
Amos makes a very compelling point.
September 29th, 2006 at 5:54 am
you are very beautiful
September 29th, 2006 at 9:47 am
On the other hand, I do kind of see Dorji’s perspective.
September 29th, 2006 at 10:59 am
*see pic* *leave comment* *IGNORES everything else*
(I see a pattern, Gerry.)
There is real cheddar/mozarella and such made in America? There must be. I get some cheeses from Quebec and they’re not at all bad.
That day-glo orange stuff they top my fillet o’fish with though, I can’t agree with. (fillet o’fish is the only mcD’s food I have…it’s a bigt of a childhood comfort food.)
September 29th, 2006 at 2:04 pm
Not to get all Rush-Limbaugh, America has some of the finest cheeses I have tried.
I’ve had Stilton and Wensleydale and Cheddar in England, brie and camembert and rocquefort in Paris, the stuff they push in Spain and in Germany. Fontina is okay, and after all, real mozzarella comes from buffalo.
The domestic cheddar one gets from my native New York state and from Wisconsin compares very, very favorably.
I like the kind without the psychedelic food coloring, too.
American swiss cheese is virtually indistinguishable from Jarlsberg in my humble.
My best friend loves American cheese, so do my kids. Save your Filet-o-fish cheese for them.
You should hear my Parisian friend Marie-Pierre Papel Ih (yes, she married a Brother) go on about Gouda. “You call that CHEESE?!?!?”
I suspect she may be less sanguine than I about American cheeses. Like politics and religion, there are some topics I prefer not to raise with Marie-Pierre.
September 30th, 2006 at 12:15 am
hey
September 30th, 2006 at 12:17 am
you looking very niec where you from your pic is vrey niec what do you do ?
September 30th, 2006 at 4:29 am
Hiya sally,
how ar u doing hope u ar fine love,just want to say hi to and friend,family so take care of ur self bye
September 30th, 2006 at 5:51 am
hi there chef
September 30th, 2006 at 9:23 am
Hi ,
friend sis
how are u .
nice too met u!
ok
take care
my mail is rockheartsky@gmail.com
October 2nd, 2006 at 9:35 am
helo..i dnt have coment about you your so beutiful ms sally..
October 2nd, 2006 at 8:51 pm
Where’s the recipee.
October 3rd, 2006 at 2:44 am
your recipe looks great and i will try it out. you look very niece. what do you do ?
October 3rd, 2006 at 5:13 am
good stuff!
by the way your a chef?
October 6th, 2006 at 4:47 pm
Gerry/ Gouda smells a bit like…garbage. But then again, smell is hardly an indicator of good cheese. Actually, the worse it smells, the better.
I enjoy a good gouda mac and cheese. Mmmm.
October 9th, 2006 at 7:09 am
I do like it.
This past weekend we went upstate and got some domestic horseradish cheese, which I wish you could taste for yourself.
Happy Thanksgiving
December 21st, 2006 at 10:58 am
Why do you specificy to take the pot OVER and not IN the boiling water. Water boils at 100′c whereas steam can be MUCH hotter. If your aim is too heat slowly, shouldn’t the pan be IN the hot water?