Let’s find out how to make the perfect hollandaise sauce

We prepare a magnificent hollandaise sauce to accompany eggs or asparagus. Here is the original French recipe.

Hollandaise sauce, to the detriment of the name, is a sauce of French origin considered one of the five mother sauces of this cuisine. It is thought that it was invented to celebrate the visit of a Dutch sovereign to France and that it took its inspiration from a very popular sauce at the time. In fact, however, it belongs to the category of mayonnaise since here too we start from an emulsion of eggs and, instead of oil, we add clarified butter.

The preparation itself is very simple, requires few ingredients and is perfect to accompany eggs or vegetables , especially asparagus. Be careful though, this sauce has stumped many aspiring chefs on TV shows, so here are our secrets.

How to make hollandaise sauce recipe

1. First, finely chop the shallot and cook it in a saucepan together with the water, vinegar and pepper. Let it simmer for 5 minutes then filter everything.
2. Pour the filtered liquid into a bowl suitable for bain-marie cooking. The important thing is that the underlying water does not touch the container for any reason.
3. Add the fresh egg yolks and start beating with a whisk. Season with a pinch of salt, one of pepper and the filtered lemon juice. Never stop working the mixture until it thickens.
4. At this point, pour in the cold melted butter , pouring it slowly and stirring constantly. Whisk the hollandaise sauce continuously for the next 5 minutes until whipped.

As you can see there is nothing too difficult. You just need a little patience and a good arm to work the sauce continuously for the 10 minutes it takes to make it so creamy.

An infallible combination to enjoy this sauce? Eggs benedict and boiled asparagus : you won't regret it.

storage

Hollandaise sauce should be served warm when freshly made. However, if you have any leftovers, you can keep them in the fridge for a day, well covered in plastic wrap. Just be careful to heat it up for a few minutes in a bain-marie before serving, stirring it delicately.