PhilinYuma
Well-known member
For Orthodox Asparagus Eaters, the asparagus season begins on St George's Day and ends on Midsummer's Day, but for me, the season begins when the price drops to $1.50/pound and ends when it goes back up again. Two days ago I bought my first pound of the season for exactly $1.50.
There are lots of ways of cooking the stuff, pan fried, deep fried, gratined, stir fried; you can even put it in a pie, but the classic way is boiled and served with hollandaise sauce, and there's the problem, two problems, in fact. Making this sauce is fraught with peril and requires some kind of bain marie, and once made, you'd better eat it all, because it doesn't keep. For these reasons, and because I am lazy, I haven't made this sauce in over ten years, but recently, by accident, I came across a sauce called "sauce batarde" which is French for "******* hollandaise" and which we, more politely, can call "mock hollandaise." It is much less fragile than the real thing, can be made without a double boiler and will last for several days. My only question was whether it tasted anything like the original. Here's the recipe:
To make about 11/2 cups of sauce.
Ingredients:
1 egg yolk.
1/2 Tbs cold water or cream (use the cream!)
11/2 Tbs flour
1 cup warm, lightly salted water
1/2 Tbs fresh lemon juice (though you could use it out of one of the plastic thingies).
8Tbs butter (Yum!) divided. 2Tbs sliced and 4 Tbs cut into small cubes and kept refrigerated.
Salt and pepper to taste.
Method:
Beat an egg yolk with the Tbs of cream or water and set aside. (I am a little [?!] clumsy and find it easier to separate a chilled yolk from the white and then let the mixture warm up to room temp).
Melt the 2ozs sliced butter in a heavy saucepan (I use an enameled cast iron one; a metal whisk will damage a teflon layer) and heat gently until it bubbles. This is not the basis for a white sauce, so don't expect all of the butter to be incorporated in the flour. You also need a lower temperature than if working with a white sauce.
Remove from the heat and let the mixture cool for a few minutes, then whisk in the egg mixture. The important thing here is that you are not adding a small amount of egg mix to a large amount of a very hot liquid, like scalded milk, so if you are careful to whisk the mixture as you pour in the egg, there is no need to "temper" the liquid and you won't end up with scrambled egg.
Return the mixture to low heat and warm until it thickens, then remove the pan and add the lemon juice. Then slowly stir in the cubed butter by handfulls, whisking constantly.
Although the recipe assumes that you will be able to amalgamate all of the butter in this way, I have found it necessary to replace the pan on very low heat to help the butter melt. Alternatively, you could use an equivalent amount of clarified butter.
And there you have it. A good robust sauce, with no hint of the flour base, very similar to "real" Hollandaise, easily made, and amenable to refrigeration for a few days. It goes well, not just with asparagus, but with fish, like poached salmon, chicken and a variety of vegetables, such as leeks and most famously, with eggs benedict. And of course, you can use it to make the usual "daughter" sauces like bearnaise, choron, maltaise and mousseline.
Before you rush off to make this, be warned. I looked this recipe up on Google, because Google is my friend, and was appalled at the insulting slop that many "cooks" were offering as this sauce. One used premade Mayo, another offered a "low cholesterol" version, and athird thought
that she was supposed to base it on a white sauce. Be assured; there are no more "shortcuts" and the sauce will not attain its glory without lethal ammounts of cholesterol. Stick with Phil's Phamous Phood Phorum, and you won't go wrong.
If anyone actually makes this, I would be very interested to hear your verdict.
There are lots of ways of cooking the stuff, pan fried, deep fried, gratined, stir fried; you can even put it in a pie, but the classic way is boiled and served with hollandaise sauce, and there's the problem, two problems, in fact. Making this sauce is fraught with peril and requires some kind of bain marie, and once made, you'd better eat it all, because it doesn't keep. For these reasons, and because I am lazy, I haven't made this sauce in over ten years, but recently, by accident, I came across a sauce called "sauce batarde" which is French for "******* hollandaise" and which we, more politely, can call "mock hollandaise." It is much less fragile than the real thing, can be made without a double boiler and will last for several days. My only question was whether it tasted anything like the original. Here's the recipe:
To make about 11/2 cups of sauce.
Ingredients:
1 egg yolk.
1/2 Tbs cold water or cream (use the cream!)
11/2 Tbs flour
1 cup warm, lightly salted water
1/2 Tbs fresh lemon juice (though you could use it out of one of the plastic thingies).
8Tbs butter (Yum!) divided. 2Tbs sliced and 4 Tbs cut into small cubes and kept refrigerated.
Salt and pepper to taste.
Method:
Beat an egg yolk with the Tbs of cream or water and set aside. (I am a little [?!] clumsy and find it easier to separate a chilled yolk from the white and then let the mixture warm up to room temp).
Melt the 2ozs sliced butter in a heavy saucepan (I use an enameled cast iron one; a metal whisk will damage a teflon layer) and heat gently until it bubbles. This is not the basis for a white sauce, so don't expect all of the butter to be incorporated in the flour. You also need a lower temperature than if working with a white sauce.
Remove from the heat and let the mixture cool for a few minutes, then whisk in the egg mixture. The important thing here is that you are not adding a small amount of egg mix to a large amount of a very hot liquid, like scalded milk, so if you are careful to whisk the mixture as you pour in the egg, there is no need to "temper" the liquid and you won't end up with scrambled egg.
Return the mixture to low heat and warm until it thickens, then remove the pan and add the lemon juice. Then slowly stir in the cubed butter by handfulls, whisking constantly.
Although the recipe assumes that you will be able to amalgamate all of the butter in this way, I have found it necessary to replace the pan on very low heat to help the butter melt. Alternatively, you could use an equivalent amount of clarified butter.
And there you have it. A good robust sauce, with no hint of the flour base, very similar to "real" Hollandaise, easily made, and amenable to refrigeration for a few days. It goes well, not just with asparagus, but with fish, like poached salmon, chicken and a variety of vegetables, such as leeks and most famously, with eggs benedict. And of course, you can use it to make the usual "daughter" sauces like bearnaise, choron, maltaise and mousseline.
Before you rush off to make this, be warned. I looked this recipe up on Google, because Google is my friend, and was appalled at the insulting slop that many "cooks" were offering as this sauce. One used premade Mayo, another offered a "low cholesterol" version, and athird thought
that she was supposed to base it on a white sauce. Be assured; there are no more "shortcuts" and the sauce will not attain its glory without lethal ammounts of cholesterol. Stick with Phil's Phamous Phood Phorum, and you won't go wrong.
If anyone actually makes this, I would be very interested to hear your verdict.
