A sauce of warmed egg yolks emulsified with butter and flavored with lemon juice.Adapted from Mastering the Art of French Cooking; Julia Child, Simone Beck and Louisette Bertholle.
6-8 ouncesbutter (3/4 to 1 cup or 1 1/2 to 2 sticks)
Plus 2tbspcold butterset aside
3egg yolks
1tbspcold water
1tbsplemon juice
Bigpinchsalt
salt and pepper
Instructions
Cut the 6 - 8 ounces of butter into pieces and melt it in the saucepan over moderate heat. Then set it aside.
Beat the egg yolks for about 1 minute in the sauce pan, or until they become thick and sticky.
Add the water, lemon juice, and salt, and beat for half a minute more.
Add one tablespoon of cold butter, but do not beat it in. Then place the saucepan over very low heat or barely simmering water and stir the egg yolks with a wire whip until they slowly thicken into a smooth cream. This will take 1 to 2 minutes. If they seem to be thickening too quickly, or even suggest a lumpy quality, immediately plunge the bottom of the pan in cold water, beating the yolks to cool them. Then continue beating over heat. The egg yolks have thickened enough when you can begin to see the bottom of the pan between strokes, and the mixture forms a light cream on the wires of the whip.
Immediately remove from heat and beat in one tbsp cold butter, which will cool the egg yolks and stop their cooking.
Then beating the egg yolks with a wire whip, pour on the melted butter by droplets or quarter-teaspoon-fulls until the sauce begins to thicken into a very heavy cream. Then pour the butter a little more rapidly. Omit the milky residue at the bottom of the butter pan.
Season the sauce to taste with salt, pepper, and lemon juice.
Notes
Keeping the sauce warm:Hollandaise is served warm, not hot. If it is kept too warm, it will thin out or curdle. It can be held perfectly for an hour or more near the very faint heat of a gas pilot light on the stove, or in a pan of lukewarm water. As hollandaise made with the maximum amount of butter is difficult to hold, use the minimum suggested in the recipe, then beat softened or tepid butter into the sauce just before serving.