Hollandaise sauce, also known as butter sauce, is a fairly versatile sauce that originated in France and is very popular in Germany.
This French classic sauce is often served with vegetables such as asparagus, fish dishes such as salmon and eggs benedict. The sauce is very popular with various meat dishes too such as veal or pork tenderloin.
The basic ingredients are butter, lemon and egg yolks. It looks a bit like mayonnaise, but instead of oil you use a lot of butter.
When preparing the sauce, make sure that the egg yolks do not set or the butter gets rancid. For that reason, it is best to prepare the sauce au bain-marie to control the temperature. The sauce should be soft and airy, so you have to keep whisking continuously.
The sauce is best served immediately. If you do want to make the sauce in advance, you can carefully reheat it au bain-marie or store it in a preheated thermos.
It takes quite a bit of effort to make a hollandaise sauce, but the result is worth it.
Prefer a different butter sauce?
Hollandaise sauce
Ingredients
- 4 egg yolks
- 1 tbsp water
- 200 g butter unsalted
- 1 lemon juice
- pinch salt
- pinch black pepper
Instructions
- Bring a pan of water to the boil.
- Beat the egg yolk with the water in a heatproof bowl.
- Lower the heat and wait until the water bubbles less. Place the heatproof bowl on the pan. Make sure the bottom does not touch the water in the pan. Then, while continuously stirring, heat the yolks to a temperature of 60°C.
- Then add the cubes of butter one by one and always wait with the next one until the cube has melted. In the meantime, keep stirring continuously with a whisk, to make sure that the egg yolks cannot set. If it threatens to solidify, add a tablespoon of water.
- Remove the bowl from the pan when all the cubes have melted. Season the sauce with lemon juice and some salt and pepper.
