The Food Lab: How To Make 1-Minute Hollandaise

if there's one sauce that has a reputation for being difficult a sauce that strikes fear into the hearts of chefs everywhere it's hollandaise now hollandaise just like mayonnaise is a fat and water emulsion normally when you mix together fat and water the fat's going to separate and float on top of the water in a greasy layer but the key to a successful emulsion is to break that fat up into droplets so tiny that they stay evenly dispersed causing the liquid to thicken and turn opaque traditionally the way that you do this is by whisking together egg yolks and lemon juice in a double boiler until they're hot and frothy and then slowly whisking in butter in a thin and steady stream as you whisk the butter breaks into my nut droplets while the egg yolk acts as an emulsifier helping to keep those droplets evenly dispersed and thickening the sauce what you get is a creamy smooth sauce with a rich texture and mild flavor that's perfect for vegetables fish and eggs but there's a lot of ways it can go wrong if you don't whisk fast enough or if you add your butter too fast the sauce will end up greasy and broken if you don't cook your eggs enough it won't thicken properly but if you cook them too much you end up with broken scrambled eggs the fact of the matter is if you want to learn how to do it the traditional way the road to perfect hollandaise is paved in broken sauces but here's the good news there's an alternative method that is completely foolproof produces a hollandaise that's every bit as good as the traditional version and takes about a minute start to finish all you need is a small pot a glass measuring cup and a hand blender with a cup that barely fits its head we start by combining an egg yolk a teaspoon of water a teaspoon of lemon juice and a pinch of salt in the bottom of a blender cut next we melt a stick of butter on the stovetop until it's completely hot and bubbling it should register about 220 degrees fahrenheit with an instant read thermometer pour that butter into a glass measuring cup now all we've got to do is stick the hand blender into the cup start it running and then slowly drizzle in our butter as the hot butter hits the eggs they start to cook by the time you've added all of your butter about 30 seconds later the eggs are fully cooked and you've got a smooth creamy hot hollandaise sauce that is completely indistinguishable from one made using the traditional whisking method hollandaise is at its best right when you make it but if you want to store it your best bet is to keep it in a small lidded pot in a warm spot somewhere near your stove just make sure that you use it within a couple of hours food lab signing out

Channel: Serious Eats

Views: 3,140,497

Keywords: Serious Eats, Hollandaise, Butter, Eggs, Egg Yolks, Food, Lemon juice, How-To, At Home, At-Home, Hollandaise Sauce, Brunch, Traditional Hollandaise, The Food Lab, J. Kenji Lopez-Alt, Kenji Lopez-Alt, Robyn Lee, Danny Ross, Kitchen, Cooking, Recipe, Recipes

Id: rOWzVV_XrcM

Length: 2min 33sec (153 seconds)

Published: Thu Apr 18 2013