Hollandaise

Ingredients

• 3 egg yolks
• 200 g butter
• 2 tbsp white wine vinegar
• juice of 1/2 lemon
• a pinch of cayenne

Method

1. Clarify the butter

   Melt the butter gently and let it settle, then pour off the golden fat and leave the milky solids behind. Those solids are water, and water is what makes a hollandaise thin and prone to splitting.

   5 min

2. Build the sabayon

   Whisk the yolks with the vinegar and a tablespoon of water in a bowl over barely simmering water — not touching it — until pale, thick and ribboning. If the bowl is too hot you get sweet scrambled eggs, so keep lifting it off the heat.

   6 min

3. Butter in slowly

   Off the heat, dribble in the warm clarified butter a few drops at a time to begin with, whisking hard, then in a thin stream once it starts to thicken. Rushing the first third is the single reason hollandaise splits.

4. Season and hold

   Add the lemon juice, salt and cayenne. If it is too thick, a teaspoon of warm water loosens it. Keep it somewhere barely warm — over 60°C it curdles, and in the fridge it sets solid.

5. Rescue if it splits

   If it does break, whisk a fresh yolk with a splash of warm water in a clean bowl and dribble the split sauce into it as though starting again. It comes back almost every time.