Hollandaise Sauce
Start by preparing the clarified butter, by melting 250g unsalted butter and let it cool for 15 minutes or so. It will settle into two parts; spoon off and keep the golden yellowy stuff on the top and discard the milky white part. Now you are ready to begin. This is the point where you should have your ice cold plunge bath on standby. Get a pan of water to simmering point (don’t allow it to boil furiously), and then pop a Pyrex bowl on top, being careful to check that the water doesn't come into contact with the bottom of the bowl. Add two large egg yolks, followed by 2 tbsps of water to the bowl and start to whisk like mad. Don't whatever you do stop because you don't want scrambled eggs to form. Plunge into iced water at any point if you think it is getting away from you. The eggs will gently cook as you whisk, and what you should end up with after a good 5-10 minutes of hard whisking is a pale, slightly thick, but aerated consistency.
Once you have this, now you can start to add the clarified butter, a spoonful or two at a time. Keep whisking all the time and eventually you will see the sauce start to thicken. You can now turn off the heat and remove the bowl from the pan. The final stage is to add some flavour by squeezing in half a lemon (or more if you prefer), and then a pinch of cayenne - keep whisking! I thought the addition of cayenne sounded a bit strange at first, but I really like it. It has to be subtle, you aren't going for something to blow your head off, but it does really work. Add salt and pepper and you are ready to go. Just drizzle it over and get stuck in.
No comments:
Post a Comment